Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of August 10th, 2026: This Leo eclipse takes the lead

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Episode 295In 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 August 10th, 2026, signals big shifts in our leadership. As Mercury (the planet of comms) opposes Pluto (the planet of the underworld), tough conversations about the shadows lurking in our power dynamics are likely to surface. Plus, the solar eclipse at the South Node in Leo serves up a fiery reality check, puncturing overinflated egos and possibly dethroning tyrants. But when Mercury moves into a sweet sextile with Venus (the planet of connection) and meets up with Jupiter (the planet of abundance), we’re blessed with good news in our relationships and good luck in the messages we want to get across. Now is the time to be bold, creative, and brave in championing the causes you care about. Major change is in the air.This episode covers:Venus’ trine to Pluto on Monday, August 10thVenus’ opposition to Neptune Rx on Monday, August 10thMars’ entrance into Cancer on Tuesday, August 11th Mercury’s opposition to Pluto on Tuesday, August 11thMercury’s trine to Neptune on Tuesday, August 11thVenus’ trine to Uranus on Tuesday, August 11thThe solar eclipse in Leo on Wednesday, August 12thMercury’s sextile to Uranus on Wednesday, August 12thMercury’s sextile to Venus on Thursday, August 13thMercury’s conjunction with Jupiter on Saturday, August 15thThis episode was recorded on 08/04/2026.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.Eclipse season is upon us, and we’re offering new and expired CHANI app users 30 days of free ritual tools, cosmic insights, and astro support from our team of real astrologers. To claim your all-access premium pass, just use code FUCKAI in the “redeem offer code” section of the app. Here’s to supporting humans, not bots. Note: This offer is valid through 8/28/2026.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

I want you to think back to about two weeks ago. Around July 29th, what was happening for you that on one hand was making you aware of some really beautiful big possibility? What was happening on one hand that was restoring your faith in life or yourself or the ways in which you're growing? What was happening for you around July 29th that felt, like a little download of inspiration or activation or was presenting you with a glorious opportunity. And then at the same time, on kind of like a parallel track, what was occurring in your life that felt like you might have stumbled into and fell down a pothole. What was happening that felt like something was being dredged up from the swamps of your psyche?

Like what kind of shadow material was making itself known at that time? It was a very extreme setup. And both things occurring at the same time is very possible. And I bring all of that up to say that this week, we are having something that takes all of that and amplifies it quite a bit. Hello and welcome. This is the Astrology of the Week Ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro Bestie, Channy Nicholas, in this episode.

We are talking about the one and only week of August 10th, aka the week that brings us the first eclipse in Leo near the South Node in a couple of decades. This is a big deal. Not only because it opens up a chapter. of eclipses in the area of your chart that contains Leo, but also because it is a total solar eclipse. And it's happening with Jupiter co-present. All of these things stack up to say. There's something massive happening in our world around leaders and leadership and a change of leadership and leaders going through a rocky rough time. I don't know what's happening by the time

you listen to this, but I am very, very close in the past. It's August 4th when I'm taping this. I still have not heard from Mitch McConnell, have you? Where is that man? Over a month and no call, no text, Mitch, what's going on? So there's like these themes that are rolling out that are wild. because an eclipse, of course, is when something gets eclipsed. It gets covered up. So eclipses are times of cover-ups being exposed. There are also a time where leaders get a eclipse, so a leader going missing during eclipse season, hmm, a little too on the nose, wouldn't you say? And whatever occurs this week, whatever happens this week with the leaders in our world, we know that this is going to have a lasting impact because eclipses set the tone for a storyline to unfold

along. They set the arc of a story. And this is the first eclipse in Leo near the South Node. Next year we'll have the second and final eclipse in Leo near the South Node. So it's a one-year arc, give or take. The other thing about this eclipse is not only is it a total solar eclipse. So it is visually spectacular, especially in Spain and in Greenland, which means that those countries might also be places where something particularly special or interesting or game-changing happens to the country itself in the countries or to the countries or to the leaders of those countries. We might hear from them or notice something about them. But and also,

first of its kind near the South Node in a couple decades, total solar eclipse, visually spectacular in those areas of the world. But it's also happening on the same day as a meteor shower. That's wild, y'all, that there's a meteor shower after a total solar eclipse. So a astrology aside, there is a spectacle happening in the sky. That is a phenomenon. Now, if you find yourself listening to me, you probably agree with me that as above, so below, if there's a visually spectacular phenomena happening in the sky, there's got to be something that is being activated here on the earth among us. That is also kind of like, wow, that's wild that that would be happening at the same time as all of this eclipse and meteor shower and activation is occurring

up in the heavens. We'll see. We've got to live it out, but I predict that this will be a very lively week here on earth. And of course, eclipses aren't just about. the very day it happens. They are about the weeks that kind of cushion that eclipse. But I will be paying special attention to the things that happen, especially for leaders and especially on the world stage, because Leo is a sign that the sun rules. And the sun is about leadership in the most divine way. Now, I'm talking about leaders in a political sense in these instances, in these examples. But we want to think about leadership in a much broader context. We want to use our imaginations and consider what leadership could actually be used to be, could be in the future.

Obviously, we don't want to look to the people that are doing the most harm and having the gravest impact on humanity now and far into the future as we could possibly even conceive of. We want to think about what the possibility for leadership is, what it means to use our life force energy to serve something that we feel is divine. In traditional astrology, the sun is the spark of the divine mind. It is the spark of all consciousness. It is creation. It is that creative impulse that brings forth our mind.

all life. The sun is life. Now, too much of the sun will leave us burnt to a crisp. It'll leave things scorched. It will leave things in a state that isn't thriving. But we need enough of the sun's light and heat and warmth to exist at all. So we want everything to be balanced. Now, when we think about the sun in our chart, our sun can be in any sign, can be in any of the 12 signs. But the part of our chart that contains Leo, you don't have to have a planet in Leo. Leo is somewhere in your chart. Your son rules that part of your chart. So wherever this eclipse is happening for you is going to tell us something about how you are moving into that alignment with the divine creative spark of intelligence that is at the heart of all life.

I know, a little out there, a little woo-woo, but I promise you, the things that are starting to coalesce now in your life have some sort of kernel of wisdom and truth in them about your essence and how to express it and how to move it out into the world now. but it is not without grappling with the equal and opposite side of the coin, your shadow. Your shadow, my shadow, the collective shadow, bitterness, maybe even hate, disgust, fear, loathing, all the things that we want to reject and pretend don't exist within us. And to some extent, all the things that we would like to project onto another. so that they can be bad and they can carry that shadow.

They can carry that projection. Now, of course, this works in society, in the systems of supremacy that we live within in a lot of different ways. And there's the architecture of supremacy that is always saying the other is to blame. The other is the scapegoat. The other is the reason why you're suffering and you're poor and you're sick and you're struggling But that's not true. The system is the reason why people are poor and struggling and are left to languish in their illness.

Because to the largest degree within capitalism, within white supremacy, within all of the systems of harm we live within, we are set up to fail. So the shadow, the greatest shadow that we live within is the lie. that it is up to us individually to figure everything out. When for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands, God knows how many thousands of years, we lived cooperatively. We lived in smaller kinds of units and took care of each other. I mean, imagine human history if it began with everyone being like, well, you better go fun for yourself.

Good luck with the saber tooth. Like, that's not a thing. That's that this is a, this is a very, very modern hallucination. And I'm bringing this all up to say that the sun and Leo is the identity and it is the central force of our life. The sun is one of those, you know, components in the chart in our solar system in all of it, astronomically and astrologically that says, this is the potential and the potency of you. But don't get it lost in the shuffle.

We all have to align ourselves leader to leader to leader to leader to leader to leader to leader to leader to leader to use our light and our potency and our power and our personas to serve something. Otherwise, we get lost and consumed by the shadow of individualism. And so during eclipse season, we have to grapple with all of that. We grapple with the parts of us that are like fun and fancy and sparkly and everybody loves this about me and I got so much attention for this. And then we also have to grapple with the other shit. And it is shit. Do you know what I'm saying? It is the stinky, gross, rotting parts of self that are just like hanging out. waiting for us to pay attention to them so that we can start the process of composting and returning all of that gunk, which is to say a type of energy, right, a type of fuel into something that is restored to its valuable state, aka eclipse season is where we deal with the shadows of both the systems we live within, the world at large, the least.

Leadership at large, or the lack of leadership at large, and also our own personal stuff. And however that intersects is what it is, right? Like I'm not saying we are all to blame for all the things we struggle with. That's ridiculous. That's fascism. But there are some things that only we can grapple with, that only I can take responsibility for my worst behavior. And maybe my worst behavior is even encouraged.

even rewarded by all of the extractive systems we live within, but it's still mine to grapple with. So what are you grappling with in terms of your shadow? Is it related to what was going on July 29th-ish? Like what was so bright and sparkly at that moment and what was so deep and dank and really challenging to witness in yourself? Or, in the world or in a relationship or in a situation, what were you grappling with that you were like, oh, wow, I think I need to build some skill and some muscle and some resilience to hold this and grapple with this. And what was like sparkly and fantastic and a little bit of a timeline jump, what was the opposition in that moment? And now, because that was the full moon, right? So it was

very oppositional in nature. And the full moon and Pluto were hanging out. And then the sun and Jupiter were hanging out. And it was all clashing. And it was all so extreme. Now all of that stuff has kind of collapsed into one thing. And the sun and the moon come together, which is a very mystical union. It is a moment of conception. It is a moment of rebirth. It is a moment of darkness. but because it's also a total solar eclipse. It is a moment where the light of conscious awareness gets blotted out. So the shadow becomes really big. But the shadow within, again, our world, within ourselves, both and, that gets revealed,

is the thing that will help us to unlock greater creative self-expression, greater faith in ourselves, greater trust in life, greater wisdom, both in ourselves and in the world, because Jupiter is all in the mix here. And just like greater life force. So we can't have one without the other. That's what eclipse season teaches us, especially eclipses in Leo. We have to have one to have the other. We have to be able to hold one in order to express the other. If we want to stay unified within the self. It's about bringing the conscious and the unconscious awareness together. And it's not that, you know, we are better than or greater than if we're like conscious or more aware, because all of that is, again, on a supremacist kind of scale. We're all struggling and we're

all learning and we're all grappling with our own stuff, with our own compost heap, and we're all learning to turn it over, and we're all learning how we can best lend our light in service of something in the world. At least I hope we are. At least that's my suggestion. That's my offering for this eclipse. What are you lending your light to at this moment? What are you being in service of in this moment? How can you lend your identity in service of something greater than yourself? And how can you at the same time not make that about you, not make that into something that makes you so great or is self-aggrandizing in any way? Because that's the shadow of doing servicey work. Okay, I'm going on a tangent now. This is the eclipse. This is the solar eclipse. There's something

of a timeline jump in your life, in my life, and in the world's history that we are going through in this moment. Maybe it's because a certain leader or a certain group of leaders come in or go out. Maybe some get demoted. Maybe some get promoted. What is occurring in your local political sphere? But also, I want you to think about all of the rules in which you can stack. into and you might want to step out of. You might want to move into and you might want to move out of. Because as we've been talking in this podcast for a while, and I promise I'm going to stop talking about this because we're going to shift things and it's not going to be about Leo anymore, at least a little bit. Jupiter's still there. South node is still there. But I do want

you to think about the ways in which you are taking on new leadership roles and you are no longer needed to lead in some area of your life. I say that because this is a South Note eclipse. And the South Node is about pouring out. And so on one level, it's about pouring our light out into the world. It's about pouring our creative energy and efforts out into the world. It's about pouring ourselves into things that, again, we want to be in service of. But it's also about what we're ready to let go of. And it's about what we are like, okay, I think this has run its course. I think that I can offer this to somebody else. I think I can return this back to the community. I think I can return this back to the compost heap. I think I can return this back to the process

from which it came and once it will go forth. You get the idea. So whatever, is happening in your life right now is beginning a storyline. It's like the opening chapter. It's the opening sentence of the opening chapter of this new book of your life. This eclipse and next August's eclipse is going to be the totality of that book. But because Jupiter is also in the mix and it's a South Node Eclipse, we know it's a lot about how to restore our faith and our trust in the process. Where do we lose trust? Where do we lose faith? How do we restore it? How do we regain it? And how do we keep offering our light, our energy, our personas, our identities to something that is greater than just self and self-aggrandizing and things that prop only us up

and make only us look good. How are you aligning with a greater constellation of people? Now, the eclipse, of course, is not the only thing that is happening this week, but it is for sure by far the biggest thing. Let's go into the nitty-gritty of the week, shall we? On Monday, Venus will do a couple of things. Actually, in the first couple of days of the week, Venus does a couple of things that are very, very important, meaning there are some significant advancements that will happen in our relationships and in our creative projects. Monday, Venus will trine Pluto. It will oppose Neptune. And then on Tuesday, it will trine Uranus. What does this mean? Well, right now, Venus is in Libra. So Venus is very now, Venus is very.

really trying to help us to socialize, to build networks, to move towards justice and fairness and equality, whatever that might mean for us and our fellows, whatever that might mean for our work and our activism in the world. And these days, Monday and Tuesday, bring about some really pivotal moments. A trying to Pluto on Monday means that there's something deep and fulfilling that we can do in groups, but and also the opposition to Neptune also happening on Monday, means that we're looking for something that is really ideal. And as long as we're aware that the ideal is to be sought, but not necessarily something that is happening in this moment or that we may never attain.

That's fine. It's really, really important to dream. As long as we know that, we're good. But if we're starting to like project things onto other people, we're going to get into a mess. And then on Tuesday, when it makes that trine to Uranus, it picks up on something that's really innovative and really exciting and really experimental. So I think that Monday and Tuesday really help to gather the people, to gather the herds, to move in a certain direction, or to all be attracted to something that can start to help people feel.

like, oh, there's unity here. There's a movement here. There's something occurring here where, like, we're all in this together. Oh, this is interesting. The big red flag of the week, if it's not the solar eclipse, which it is. But the secondary red flag of the week is that Mars moves into cancer. Mars has a hard time in cancer. It's a little passive aggressive. It's a little moody. It's a little less than straightforward. And Mars needs to be straightforward or that's its job. But the biggest red flag here is that Mars is going to make a square to Neptune and then a square to Saturn. And so this is the time of the year between August 11th and September 1st, where I want us to be really cognizant of the fact that we're probably going to overbook ourselves. We're

probably going to feel like we're in a time crunch. We're probably going to be like, how am I going to get everything done by September 1st or the first couple of days of September? we're probably going to be like, wow, who scheduled this? Was it me? Am I the problem again? Oh my God. Why do I do this to myself? So I want this just to be your sign, your warning. I'm saying this knowing full well that I've already overbooked myself for the end of August and the beginning of September. I'm already overwhelmed and it's just the 4th of August when I'm recording this. So I don't even listen to my own best advice, But here we are. Cancel what you need to ahead of time. Don't wait until the last minute. If you know, like, I double book myself. I can't believe how am I going to do all that?

If you're saying that to yourself now, just be a really good friend to you in the future. Be a really good friend to you the first week of September. We don't need to arrive September 1 burnt out and frustrated. I mean, maybe we will. But if you can do anything to get out ahead of a overly compact situation, please do so. Consider this your warning and mine. And then the rest of the week, Mercury does a million things. It's moving really fast. It is doing its thing. It's fulfilling its promises. We're having exceptionally potent, interesting, phenomenal conversations. Mercury, is in Leo. The conversations are going to be loud. They are going to be spectacular. They're going to get our attention. Probably there's going to be like a media blitz, obviously around the eclipse

and the meteor shower. But it has that kind of vibe to it. It makes an opposition to Pluto. So there's a very deep conversation happening on Tuesday. It also makes it trying to Neptune. So it doesn't stay in the depths. It goes into some kind of more inspired place. On the day of the eclipse on Wednesday, it makes a sex style to Uranus. So it helps us to see things, to think of things, to ponder things in a different way, in a way that opens and broadens our perspective in our mind. On Thursday, it's sexiles Venus, which is really lovely and really encouraging and really helps us to build bonds. And then the most spectacular thing is that on Saturday, it makes a conjunction with Jupiter. A conjunction with Jupiter is far from realistic, but it is exactly what we need to help

us move through whatever depths and whatever shadows and whatever blips and whatever timeline jumps we experience with the eclipse on August 12th. So the Jupiter-mercury conjunction that happens on Saturday. August 15th is going to be really inspiring. I want us to think big. I want us to have conversations that illuminate the potential of something. I also want us to have conversations that help us to build trust with ourselves, with each other. I want us to think about how do I say this in a way that will engender trust. I also want us to think, what is the wisest way to approach this conversation. Because while Jupiter is about growth and abundance, and it is a kind of optimistic planet, it's about wisdom and it's about generosity. And it is about being able to build

trust with each other because of the ways in which we share a philosophical, a moral compass. Right? Like, I believe these things. Do you believe those things? Great. If we both believe these things, these laws, these moral principles, these values, even if you will, even though that's like a very Venusian thing. And Mercury and Venus are coming together on Thursday. So between Thursday and Saturday, I really want us to focus on the ways in which we can have conversations that build trust with one another. How do we take our values, our morals, our principles, the things we believe in, and build a coalition with those principles intact and focused upon. And how do we communicate that with one another in a way that's like, oh yeah, I'm attracted to that. Like, how do we attract one another to each other so we can build something together?

Because as I say all the time, as everybody says all the time, we are what we've got. It's us. It's us. And I think that that is the vibe we end with. Yes, there's all these leaders. And yes, they do damage. And yes, they do amazing things. And yes, there are some, very few are leading the way in really, really positive, encouraging beautiful ways that are engendering a new kind of trust in one another. But we've got to do that person to person. We've got to build trust within ourselves, within our own ability to build skill and show up in new ways, but also with one another, a little bit at a time.

What can you do this week, especially by the end of the week, that's going to help you to build a little bit more trust in all of your relationships, including your relationship to yourself? What do you need to do to show up for yourself that will help you to be like, oh yeah, I can trust myself to do that. That's cool. I said I was going to do it. And then I did it. And that's the hint. Say what you mean, mean what you say, do what you say, say what you do. Have it be as clear and consistent as is possible. And because it's an eclipse week, it's a South Node Eclipse week especially, we are going to be working on harm reduction. We are going to be working on turning down the volume on things that lead to a kind of overwhelm.

or burnout or stress or even like a toxicity. You know, like we kind of poison yourself a little bit. Like, ooh, I had too much of that. And now I feel overwhelmed. My system is overwhelmed. We are going to anti-inflammatory practices, harm reduction practices. It's a South Node Eclipse. We want to bring the energy down.

We want to release the things out into the world that we're ready to release. We want to just watch it happen. You want to stay as grounded as possible because eclipses are power outages. It is a time where the energy is unstable. We don't do magic. We don't do manifesting. At least I don't. You might, but I don't.

But I take note of what is naturally occurring. I'm not trying to make anything happen right now. But I'll tell you, I have some wild things that just so happened to line up around the days of the eclipse. I did not do anything to make them happen. but they just fell into my calendar. So I'll let you know how it goes. If it goes, it's like, astounding.

I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I have no idea. But I didn't do anything to set things up for the eclipse. But I do watch like a hawk what rolls in and what goes out. What actually lands and becomes something. And what is just like a little like, ooh, flashy kind of like, Meteor shower, blip. Because that's the thing about eclipses. It brings in a lot of energy, but a lot of

it doesn't actually end up settling. But one or two things will, and those one or two things have the tendency to be catapulting, to catapult you, me, us into a new direction. And yes, they have the ability to be quite life-changing, quite cataclysmic sometimes. So we'll see what happens, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, always, always, always. Now, instead of doing a question from the audience this week, I'm going to do an amalgamation of questions that I received on threads. Do you know what I'm on threads? I'm on threads. I'm a little unhinged on threads. I'll just warn you. Some friends found me on threads the other day. And I was like, oh, no, you can see me. I might go off every once in a while. Anywho, sometimes I ask like, hey, what are your questions? And I asked people recently

what they wanted me to answer on the week ahead, in the astrology of the week ahead podcast, which is here, which is now, which is this. And a lot of people asked, what does it mean to have my South Node in the first house? Excellent question. My one main response is this. We added the nodes to the app a couple years ago now, and you have an incredibly detailed description of what the South and North node mean in your chart. In the Chani app, it's already written. I could not do a better job than what was already written and is already put in the app written by humans, because we do not use AI to do any part of our astrology on the app. We are a team of astrologers and writers and human beings that create the Chani app. And we have a code for you right now. The code is

fuck AI. And if you use it, you'll get 30 days of absolutely free premium content in the Chani app. And I want you to go and read your description of where the South Node is in your chart as part of a ritual for this week's eclipse. We don't do rituals on eclipses. But I think doing a little bit of knowledge seeking can be really, really helpful. So in the app, it'll tell you where your south and North Node are, if any planets are sitting with them. What does it mean to have them in that sign, in that house, and with those planets, or not. Some of you will have it with planets and some of you want. It doesn't matter if you do or don't. It's just information. So I want you to use the code F-U-C-K-A-I in the Chani app and get 30 days of absolutely free content. Go listen to your reading

this week so you understand where the eclipse is in your chart. And then, my friends, go and read about your North and South Node as a practice for this week. So you can understand something about the nature of where you're always releasing something, right? If we have our South Node in the first house, we're the kind of people that are like, that's cool. I don't need to hold on to things. You have that kind of vibe to you. South Node in the first house is very like, I'm good. That's okay.

I've got it. Like it's not like I need to do everything myself, but it's a feeling of being a little bit unattached. It's a little bit like, well, I don't need to grasp for that. I am relaxed about it. There's that kind of feeling to the South Node in the first house. And you might be somebody that puts out a tremendous amount of yourself into the world. Like you might be like, oh, I want to make this and put it out. And I want to make this and put it out. oh, and I'm going to make this and do this and here, have some of that. You might be incredibly generous. There's just this feeling of like, yeah, just put it out there. Great, move on. Next. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just like put it out and keep it moving. Keep it going. There's that feeling of like, okay, well, if it's not meant for me, it's not mine.

And also here, I've got more of this than I need. Take it. I don't need to have all this. Take it. I don't need it. So go and read about your soft note because it's it'll give you something. It'll tell you something about your attitude about where you also should be giving or need to be giving or could have an outlet that would be really healthy for you. Like where do you need to just like put stuff out? What area of your life do you need to be like, okay, I'm going to let this flow. I'm just going to let this because there's more coming, right? That's the thing about a flow. It's like this is the tail of the dragon. The Southland is the tail of the dragon. So it's just like, okay, output.

But we want to make sure we don't put out too much. We don't leak energy. And that's why we want to take very good care of ourselves and each other this week. I love you. I thank you. I'm sending you all of the eclipse protection and energy and all of the things that we need. Here we go. Eclipse season.

I will see you back here next week where we will talk about the in-beder between moments, between eclipses, and the fact that Mars is going to be squaring Neptune on Monday, making it a little bit messy post-eclipse and pre-next eclipse. Bye for now.