Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of April 28th, 2025: Leaning in to community

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Episode 228In this podcast, New York Times best-selling author and astrologer Chani Nicholas discusses the astrology of the week and what it might mean for us all.The astrology of the week of April 28th, 2025, commands chaos in the name of justice. Venus shifts back into fiery Aries, spotlighting the stories of women, femmes, and the LGBTQIA+ community. And as the planet of revolution starts to backtrack through Aquarius, we’re called to reckon with our collective power. This period is all about banding together and turning our agitation into action.Let’s get into it.This episode covers:The New Moon in Taurus on Sunday, April 27Venus’ re-entry into Aries on Wednesday, April 30thBeltane on Thursday, May 1stVenus’ conjunction with Neptune on Friday, May 2ndThe start of Pluto’s retrograde on Sunday, May 4thThis episode was recorded on 4/14/2025.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

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Let this be the year that changes everything. The support, the tools, the guidance, they're here. Now it's your turn to use them. Hello and welcome. This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I am your astro bestie Channie Nicholas. And in this week's episode, we are talking about the week of April 28th. If you're new to this podcast, hello, welcome. We talk about what the next seven days of astrology is going to be, how it might land in our lives in the world at large. And what to do with it. So in this podcast, I talk more generally. I talk more collectively. But if you want to know what this astrology means for you

specifically, you can head to the Chani app and listen to your weekly readings. There, I'm much more personal. And I'm also much more granular in terms of like what you specifically should do with this astrology. Here, I'm really talking about a collective kind of experience, which I think is also really interesting in terms of watching how the astrology unfolds. Astrology is a mirror of what happens here on Earth. Maybe what happens here on Earth is a mirror of the astrology. I don't know. But the sky is the mirror that we have to look at. At least that's how I think of astrology. It's not that the planets make us do something. It's that there is this reflection that we can look to exactly like a mirror to be like, do I have something on my teeth? Is there? Is my hair?

Okay. Does this color work on me? All of those things. That's how the astrology works. So when I'm looking at the picture, when I'm looking at the reflection, I'm like, okay, how could that land for us as a collective, as a body of people on this podcast? And then again, in the weekly readings, I'm looking at it more precisely. So all that to say, I'm recording this in the past. I'm recording this at the beginning of April. I don't know what's happening at the end of April. But I do know this. On April 26th, two days before this podcast comes out, there is something very very.

very tense that's happening in the sky. It is Mars and Leo making its third and final opposition to Pluto in Aquarius. And I've been talking about this a lot on the podcast because it's one of those moments in the year that's like it's not a once in, you know, 165 year kind of thing. But it's a once every couple of years thing. And because it's related to Mars's most recent retrograde, it's a callback to things that maybe happened in the beginning of November, in the beginning of December, and then in the beginning of January. And then this is the third and final time. I know I just mentioned three dates there, but November, December, and January are all really important Mars Pluto dates and Mars dates especially. So if there's a theme that's

unfolding that has like, oh, wow, yes, there is like a part one, part two, part three, maybe even part four kind of story unfolding that you're noticing right now. Yes. And that might be in your personal life and it might be in our collective experience. All that to say, the vibe of tension permeates the air at the end of April. That's not a good or bad thing. It's just a thing. Now, Mars is the planet of being a warrior, being a leader. It is the planet of aggression. And this is an aggressive tension that is set up. Now, what can we use aggression for in a positive kind of way? Or how can we channel the energy of anger, of rage, of fierceness in the most positive way possible? Well, you think of like, what do I need to fight?

who do I need to fight? How do I need to show up as a fighter for the things that need to be protected? How do we collectively show up as a worthy opponent of whatever it is we are facing collectively and personally? And that's what this kind of setup can teach us. That's what it can be really good for because no matter how gnarly the astrology is, it also has to. By default, be good for something. I don't believe anything is ever just bad for us, astrologically speaking. It's never fun when you see something like this coming, but it doesn't mean that it's not medicine that we need now or that we're ready for.

So what have you noticed over the past couple weeks about the collective, about yourself, and about your desire or the collective desire to be a worthy opponent, to be in training, to be in the fight, to be in the ring, to be on the field, to be like, okay, then we're going to do this. This is where we are. I'm not somewhere else that is like all sunshine and daisies and butterflies and rainbows. I'm here. And right now this looks like I need to get serious about where I am. There's that kind of vibe in the air.

So what is that tension? What have you noticed on the world stage? what have you noticed in your own personal life? What have you noticed in your friend groups? And how are you approaching things that are tense? Are you learning to approach them with curiosity, with a willingness to see how can I work this? What might be the opportunity here? What might be the third position, right? Attention is when two things, two opposites are pulling at each other. And then we have to imagine that it's not just a binary situation that we're in. It's not just good and bad. There's a third space that opens up when we move into like, okay, I'm going to receive the tension. I'm going to, I'm going to accept.

I'm going to radically accept this tension. What is a third way to be? What is another option? How do I integrate maybe the opposites and come more into the center? So I just wanted to lay that out because that's where we're starting the week. We're starting with that tension permeating the airwaves in some way, shape, or form. And again, maybe it's something that has helped us to double down and say, no, I am going to fight this thing. It's like in the story, you know, the main character has to wake up and be like, okay, I can't keep running from the thing.

I actually have to move into it and figure out what I can do within the scope of it. All right. So this week's astrology, again, it's colored by that. It's impacted by that astrology. We can't separate these things out. that is a big overall tone that's happening, that Mars Pluto tension, opposition, rallying us to fight for something to be like, what is worth this energy? What is worth this desire to move through a hefty kind of situation?

What am I digging my heels into and saying, like, I'm not going to give up on this. I cannot give up on this. We cannot give up on this. And then this week's big news is that Venus, who also retrograded through March and some of April, a good amount of April, is now moving direct, has stationed direct, and is now moving back into Ares. Now, Aries is ruled by Mars, right? So anything that's in Ares right now is kind of connected to this tension of the Mars Pluto opposition. Why? Because if you're saying in somebody's house and they're under duress, you're going to feel it, right? You're going to be like,

oh gosh, I think something's going on here. I think we came into a situation that's got a little tension. You can feel it in the house. Venus is entering Mars's house. And so there is a vibe of like, okay, we are in an engagement that is full of tension and also requires a lot of energy. And Venus is moving into Ares, the sign of, you know, like, let's get up and go. Now, Venus is a planet that is about social cohesion, art, beauty, love, desire, especially in Aries, and how to move towards it, how to make things beautiful. It's also about women and femmes and queer folks. Now, when Venus is in Aries, it is by default in a sign that is about energy and drive. And yes, fighting for something because it is a sign that is ruled by Mars. So if we think of Venus as a sign as a sign as,

the people or how we connect, how we build bonds, being in a sign that is about fighting, sometimes that can be a little hard. It can signal a time that it's like, okay, well, it's not really about, again, laying around and just experiencing the bliss of being, which I love that for us. I want that for us. But when Venus is in areas, it's like, no, no, it's go time now. Let's gather and go. And I do think it is a time that signals our collective or a gathering point of friction where we're like, we need to go and do something. We need to take action as a collective. This is not good. This is not great. This might not be good for women, for queer folks, for femmes, for, you know, fill in the blank, marginalized inside of patriarchy. And this might be a time

where, again, we're galvanized to go do something. Venus will be in Aries for the next five and a half weeks. It'll be there until June 5th. So from the 30th of April to June 5th, we do have a little point in the year and it's small and it's quick, but I just want us to take note of it. It is a time where we are encouraged to move together or to move in response to something that is agitating and irritating and possibly unjust because if Venus is a planet of anything, it is also a planet of justice, seeking justice. What is fair? What is equitable?

In areas, it's like, that isn't fair. this is what I'm going to do about it. This is what we are going to do about it, possibly. This is the group of people that feels this thing is unjust or unjust, both, either and, or on Friday, Venus does something that it's never done before in Ares. Venus makes a conjunction to Neptune in Ares. It's done this in other signs in our lifetime, but it's never done this with Neptune and Ares. So we have a brand new signature in the skies. And it is about the ultimate vision of collective fire, or it is about the ultimate vision for us coming together to fight for something, to have courage, to show up for each other, to be like, I will fight for you,

will you fight for me? And again, to rally, right? Anything in Ares rallies rallies rallies us. It stirs up our enthusiasm. It is a get up and go sign. And again, Venus is about beauty, art, love, women, femmes, justice. So is there a rally cry that is quite universal, quite dreamy, quite maybe even utopian because it's Neptune in the mix by Friday, that we're being called by or called to go and do something? This I do think is a call to action.

It is a call to action to be like, what am I in relationship with? And how am I going to have courage to take action to make the dream manifest. Because Neptune is always about dreams and Aries is always about taking action. And Venus is about making it beautiful, making art, making it fun, making it pleasurable. But in Aries, it's about we need to like be assertive about this. We can't keep the peace if there's only in. justice happening. That's a time to get loud and to get active. And there's something here that says that. And again, for the next five weeks, I'm not saying only for the next five weeks,

but the next five weeks is another one of those stirring moments in the year where it's stirring us to be like, okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to take action? What are we taking action towards? I also want to say that until about May 15th, until about mid-May, Venus is in its post retrograde shadow, which may or may not mean much, but it does mean that we're still like finishing something up that we've been doing pretty much all year because Venus entered into this like pre-retrograd shadow and then retrograded and then station direct and now it's in its post retrograde shadow till about mid-May. So we might notice that we're still circling back around something and trying to figure out how to work with it. The only other

thing that happens this week is that Pluto stations retrograde. Listen, Pluto's like retrograde for about six months a year. So it's not a big deal that Pluto is retrograde. It's not a Venus retrograde. It's not a Mars retrograde. Again, this outer planet spends so much time. Half of its life, that's not a thing, but half of its time, retrograde every year. But the day or the week or the time period where it's stationing direct or retrograde like it is this week can pull focus. So we know that Mars and Pluto just made an opposition. And Pluto is stationing retrograde at the same point. So it's pulling focus on Pluto in Aquarius themes. The last time Pluto is an Aquarius was the American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution. There are themes of revolution that we can easily connect

to Pluto and Aquarius. And because Pluto takes so long to move through a sign, because it takes so long to do anything, we want to look at like the big themes that happened the last time Pluto was in this sign because Pluto is just at the first couple degrees of this sign. And so we might be, again, pulling focus on themes that are about collectivism and our collective power, both because of what happened on April 26th when Mars and Pluto made that opposition, but also because Pluto is stationing retrograde this week. So it's like an extra kind of doubling down. Now, I want to say something about Pluto stationing retrograde that's very personal to you, most likely, maybe, for some of you, for a couple of you. Anyways, if you have planets between one and three, so one, two, or three,

even I'll add four. 1, 2, 3, 4, but definitely 1, 2, 3 degrees of Taurus, Scorpio, Aquarius, or Leo. Then Pluto is either making a opposition, planets in Leo, or a square, planets in Scorpio, or in Taurus, or a conjunction, planets in Aquarius. Again, 1, 2 or 3 degrees of Aquarius, to a planet or a point. in your chart. And that is big news. This is why Pluto takes so long to do anything. So if Pluto is making a square opposition or conjunction to a planet or a point in your chart, you will feel this moment, this retrograde. And over the course of the next six or so months, Pluto will roll over

that planet, station direct, and roll over it again. So you are in the midst. of a big transformation that is connected to the planet that Pluto is engaged with if you have a planet at one, two, or three degrees of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, or Aquarius. So go check your chart in the Chani app and see if you have a planet or a point at one of those very sensitive degrees as it pertains to Pluto. Pluto will strip things down, remove obstacles from. your path that you're like, no, don't take that sometimes. Sometimes it's like that. And bring you through a very deep and cathartic transformation over the period of about a year, sometimes to a year and a half, depends on the whole deal. But if you have something at one, two, or three, you've been in

this transit for a minute and this retrograde might amp things up in relationship to the planet in your chart that it is transiting. Go to the transit section in the Chani app to see if you are having a Pluto transit, just scroll down and look at long-term transits. Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything from the audience, a question. I love this question. I think it's really fascinating. I wish I had this person's chart to kind of like fill out my response. But this person asked, can you feel like your descendant?

Can you feel like the sign of your descendant? So they are a Virgo rising. That means that Virgo was rising up over the eastern. horizon when they were born. And that means what was descending, the part of the sky that was going down below the horizon was sinking was Pisces, because it's just the natural opposite, right? When one sign rises, the other sign descends. So your descendant is the point of relationships. The ascendant is the point of you. The ascendant is you. The descendant is you in relationships, the people that you will have relationships with and all kinds of information about relationships

in your life. So at face value, I would say, I mean, do you? Do you feel like a Pisces? Is that the question that you're asking? Is that why you're asking the question? And if so, this person also said, I have no planets and Pisces. So fascinating, right? But the thing that I would look to if someone asked me that and I was giving them a reading

is I would look to the planet that rules Pisces, which is Jupiter. And I would see if Jupiter is one of the main stars of the show in their chart. So I would look to see if Jupiter was in Sagittarius in the other sign it belongs in. That might make it really loud in the chart. I would look to see if Jupiter was in the first house or 10th house or fourth house. Those are areas of the chart because I know it's not. in the seventh. I would also look there, but I know nothing's in the seventh. Yes, I know nothing's in the seventh. So I would look at the first, first, 10th and fourth houses to see if Jupiter was there.

If Jupiter is what we call angular in one of those houses, it will also be really loud. If it's not in one of those houses and it's not in Sagittarius, I would look to see if Jupiter was in cancer. That is a sign of Jupiter's exaltation. That also means that Jupiter is really strong. If it's, it's not in Sagittarius and it's not in cancer and it's not in the first or the 10th or the fourth house because I know it's not in the seventh, then I would actually, and this might be a controversial opinion, I would actually look to see if it's in one of the signs that it struggles the most in, which is Gemini, Virgo, and Capricorn. This is what I notice about people when they have planets that are in detriment or in their fall.

which are, again, signs that the planets will struggle in. I notice that the signification of that planet is really strong. It's something they have to work at. It's something that might plague them. It's something that becomes really loud in their life. And I'm saying this as a person that has three planets in detriment and fall. The significations of those planets don't come easy to me, but they are a main theme of my life. because they're like an irritant. Because that that thing is hard for me, I have to work at it. So then it

becomes like a theme in my life. Because those planetary themes feel so elusive to me, they make me study hard and work hard and they make me driven to experience the positive aspect of it. That's not always how it feels to have a planet in detriment or fall. At first, it might feel like, why am I so forsaken. But eventually, if we put ourselves, you know, at service of life and we develop the parts of us that feel wobbly or underdeveloped or underloved or marginalized or whatever, then we get the benefit of knowing that planet inside and out, knowing those significations inside it out. So my first question is, where is your Jupiter? If you feel like a sign, if you're like, I feel like a Libra, but I'm a Scorpio Rising and a Piscese.

sun and my moons and Virgo, I would be like, well, if you feel like a Libra, where's your Venus? That's the planet that rules Libra. How pronounced is your Venus? How problematic is your Venus? How strong is it? How struggling is it? I feel like people that have really strong placements and people that have placements that are strugglinging.

It's almost like one has maybe more fun with it, but they're almost as loud as each other, just in different ways. So that's my suggestion is go see what the planet that rules that sign is doing in your chart. And of course, you can always go to the Chani app and see where that planet is, what sign it's in, what house it's in, and what the Chani app has to say about it. All right. I hope that was helpful. I am sending you so much love, so many blessings. This Venus and Ares, may it help us blaze.

a new trail. You know, that saying, like, may the bridges that I burn light the way to a new adventure. I'm not saying you should burn all the bridges, but I am saying that maybe some of the bridges weren't built to last. Who knows? Let's see what we do. I will say that I said this before. I said this a couple weeks ago, Neptune in areas is like lighter fluid. And actually, that phrase is from Eliza Robertson, who wrote that in the 2025 yearbooks. And I think it's brilliant because Neptune is the planet of waters and seas. And in a fire sign, it's lighter fluid. So what gets ignited, what gets sparked, what goes whoosh in a kind of collective way? Or for our art, for beauty making, for joy. If we're going to change the world, it has to be through joy. It has to be through joy.

It has to be through love. It has to be through something that is so magnetic and so captivating that everybody wants to join. All right. Come back next week and we'll talk about the upcoming full moon in Scorpio. It's not happening until the 12th of May, but I think it's a big deal and I want to talk about it. So we'll do a little prep work as well as talking about the other little tips and tricks for the week.

It's telling you lots of love. Many, many blessings. Bye for now.