Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of August 3rd, 2026: Support, stability, and ego-shedding

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Episode 294In 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 3rd, 2026, gives us a moment to process and prepare for the upcoming eclipse season. When Chiron (the minor planet of healing) stations retrograde in Taurus, it calls us to slow down and tend to any wounds that surfaced during last week’s Full Moon. Thankfully, we have support from Venus (the planet of love and beauty) as it moves into Libra (its home sign), encouraging balance, fairness, and cute moments of connection. And the Sun’s trine to Saturn (the planet of boundaries and systems) also helps us to find the structure and stability we need to feel secure. Use this time to soften and sift through what you’re ready to shed with next week’s South Node eclipse.This episode covers:The start of Chiron retrograde on Monday, August 3rdVenus’ entrance into Libra on Thursday, August 6th The Sun’s trine to Saturn Rx on Thursday, August 6thMercury’s entrance into Leo on Sunday, August 9thThis episode was recorded on 06/22/2026.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.ICYMI: For no reason whatsoever, we’re offering new and expired CHANI app users 30 days of human-centered astro tools and insights for free. To claim your all-access premium pass, just use code FUCKAI in the “redeem offer code” section of the app. Here’s to AI-free astrology for all.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

We are in the in-between times. Last week, we had a big, huge full moon, the likes of which I had not seen in many a years. Next week, we have the first in a series of eclipses in Leo near the South Node. This week is in betwixt those two things. What happened last week? I am in the past. I am recording this in June. I'm not even in July yet. let alone August. What happened last week that helped you to understand your power, your potency, your creative desire, and your need to take on new leadership roles and maybe let go of some old ones?

And what are you preparing for next week? Or, shall I say, let us take this week to do some prep work. You know how when you go for like a scrub at the spa and they get you to soak in the tub for a little while so that the scrub can actually do the exfoliation job that it needs to? That's this week. This week we are soaking in the tub. This week we are pondering about what it is we are shedding. This week we're like, let me just soften things up so that next week I can let the things go that need to go. And I can let the rules go that need to go. I can just be at peace with whatever is coming and whatever is leaving my life. 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 week of August 3rd, the week before the big eclipse of August. There's going to be a bit of August. There's going to be two eclipses in August. One is on the 12th of August and one is on the 27th of August. The one on the 12th of August is new. It's the one that is happening in Leo and that's what we're going to focus on this week. The one on the 27th of August is a wrap up. It is a closure. It is the final eclipse in Pisces. So August, we could say, is very big for the Leos and the Pisces, the Piscians and the crowd. And it's also big for all of us because we all have. every sign in our chart. So Leo is somewhere in your chart and Pisces is somewhere in your chart.

And we're beginning, we're initiating a journey in the area of your life that is connected to the area of your chart that contains Leo. And we're ending a journey in the area of your chart that contains Pisces. But Leo is very special to everyone because the sun rules Leo. And we all have a sun. We all were born with the sun in a certain sign. And the sun is our way of shining. The sun is our identity. It is our life's purpose. It is the divine mind. It is the spark of life. It is so essential to understand in our chart. Now, I want to break this down in a way that hopefully you can understand. There are the planets in the sky. There are the signs that they just so happen to be in when you were born. And then there are the houses. And the houses are how we kind of lay down the sky.

So if you think of the zodiacal wheel being 360 degrees and every sign is 30 degrees so that there's 12 signs and they all fit neatly. It's not really how the sky works, but it's how our paradigm works. It's how our representation of the sky works when we bring it down onto paper. You could say we kind of flatten it out. The houses are the 360 degrees of the zodiacal wheel. In whole sign houses, traditional astrology, what I use, that signs become the houses. So your rising sign becomes the entirety of your first house. And then the second house is the entirety of that sign. The third house is the entirety of that sign. The houses are the where in your life, the hoompsed in your life. The people, the places, the areas, the things in your life are all

found in one of the 12 houses in your chart. Now, each house has a sign. That's why you have all 12 signs in your chart. Or that's how you could think of. I have every sign in my chart because I have all 12 signs because I have all 12 houses. There's planets in some sense. There's planets in some signs and then not in other signs in some houses, not in other houses. That's fine. That's normal. That's all of us. You'll have some empty houses, some full houses, some planets, a whole cluster of planets sometimes in one sign in one house, nothing and a whole bunch of other signs and houses. Fine. The planets are, we could say, like the actors, the characters. The signs are the style that they do, their character through, and the houses are the stages, the places in our life.

So the sign gives us the style and the themes, but the houses give us the where this happens. Why am I telling you all of this? Because Leo is a sign that, again, is one of 12 in that 360-degree wheel. Leo is somewhere in your chart. I promise you, just because you don't have a planet there. It doesn't mean you don't have Leo in your chart. Leo is somewhere in your chart. And wherever Leo is in your chart, that house that Leo falls in your chart is very important for you specifically. The house that Leo occupies in your chart is very important. Why? Because it is the area of life that your son rules. The sun rules Leo. So say your son is in the ninth house of travel and education and expansion and law and religion and philosophy. And that's where you shine and also publishing.

So say you work in publishing and you also teach a class. Your son is in the ninth house. Great. Love it. But because your son also rules the second house. that tells me that's how you make money because the second house is the house of money. The sun brings the meaning of whatever house it rules into the area of life that it's in. Have I lost you yet?

Leo is such an important part of your chart to understand because it tells us something about how you live out your life's purpose. It tells us something about how you need to incorporate the meaning of your son. It tells us something about you will not feel at full wattage unless you live out the part of your chart that contains Leo. So for Leo Rising's that's self. That's you. That's you being fully self-expressed, all parts of you. It doesn't have to make sense to industry. It doesn't have to make sense to capitalism.

It doesn't have to make sense to a bestseller list. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you. If you were Leo rising, that is self. That is full self-expression. If you are Virgo rising, Leo falls in your 12th house of secrets and behind-the-scenes life and backstage and doing things in the dark, doing things in a contained environment. That is part of how you need to fully self-express. It's about doing things outside of public.

view because that's how we move pieces sometimes. We can't have everything be like out in the open and for public debate. Sometimes we need to go do stuff back there. It's also about healing. So people with Virgo Rising know a thing or two about healing or they need to learn that because that's a key component of their identity. That's where Leo is. It's in the 12th house. Leiber Rising have Leo in the 11th House of Friends. So shocker, Libra rising people need to shine in groups and in teams and in collectives and amongst their friends at the party, shall we say, at the soiree. You know what I'm saying?

Scorpio rising, folks, have Leo in the 10th house of public life, of profession, of vocation, of what we do out in the world. They need to shine in powerful ways out in the world. Sadge rising people have Leo in the ninth house of travel, of education, of religion, of philosophy. They need to go have adventures. Shocker. They need to travel. Who knew? A sadger rising. That's part of how you shine. Capricorn rising? They have Leo in the eighth house. The eighth house is a place of other people's resources. Excellent managers. Excellent partners. Excellent co-co. conspirators. If you know a Capricorn Rising, they know how to make the most out of your talents.

Capricorn Rising will be like, huh, you know, if you did this and that and that, you would have something really great. And probably they can help you do that because they are the consummate collaborator. Now, it's also a place of death and loss and mystery and liminal places. and guess who's comfortable talking about the tough stuff? Guess who's comfortable entering into places where you're like, well, that's what happens. We all die. Like, no one but a Capricorn rising or no one like a Capricorn rising. I mean, maybe a Scorpio rising. But you know what I'm saying? Capricorn risings are like, yeah, you too are going to get old and die. What did you think was happening here? There is a reality check that Capricorn gets. And anyways, their sun,

rules the eighth house, no matter where it is. Aquarius rising, partners. Aquarius rising might be like, I need space, give me some space, but they need partnership. They actually, Aquarius rising, part of your son, your soul's purpose, is to find the right partners that know how to join forces with you, that know how to like partner with you. That's part of your journey of learning how to shine is partnership. Picey's rising, your son rules the sixth house. That's where you have Leo. It's in the sixth house. The six house is a place where we can really struggle to come into a place of power. The six house is a place where we might come to really understand the nature of suffering through an ailment. And that's what gives a Pisces rising such an innate understanding of other

people's suffering. It's part of what gives you and lends your personality and persona such an understanding of compassion and you have a compassionate tone to your very persona. But and also, the sun is a place where we want to get individual recognition. But the sixth house is a place where we need to devote self to something bigger. And that is again a part of an understanding of your Pisces Rising. Part of how you understand and live out your life's purpose is by being of service in the world. Aries Rising, you have Leo in the fifth house of creative self-expression. So part of your thing is to be creatively spontaneous, is to understand your creative potency and power and to also play and do sports and have fun and like just be able to be like,

yeah, let's do that. Spur the moment. I don't know, because I felt like it. That's part of living out your life's purpose. Tourist rising, Leo is your fourth house of home and family and foundation. Home is where you shine. I'm not saying you're not an extrovert. I'm not saying you're not a gal about town. I'm not saying you're not mayor of mayor town. I'm just saying that a part of you feeling alive and thriving and creatively self-expressed is by understanding what you need from a home and family foundational situation and also understanding your lineage. You also might be really good at doing archival investigative work. Gemini Rising. Leo is your third house of communication. I don't know. Do you feel an affinity with communicating? This is the third house of community, of

local life, of conversations, of gathering data, that's where Leo is in your chart. Meaning that you will feel more self-expressed, the more you articulate yourself, the more you learn, the more you spread the knowledge, the more you are interacting with your local environment. Besties, coffee shops, gab sessions, and the like. Cancer rising, Leo is your second house of security, of money, of how you make it. You might not like money. You might hate capitalism. You might be a socialist. You might be an anarchist. I don't know. But whatever you do for a living, however you make a living and what you do with your money, aka you could give all of it away, you could be like so deep in mutual aid. That is money, right? Your identity is tied into how you live out your life's purpose is tied into what you do to make a living, what you do to

survive, what you do with your money and your material possessions. That is very much tied into your identity. Why am I telling you all this? Why am I going in this big, long expedition to teach you an astrology lesson? Well, it's because so much is happening in Leo right now. Last week, we had Jupiter and the Sun meeting up in Leo. The week before that, we had the South Node moving into Leo. That all means that this part of your chart, whatever I just said for your rising sign, that area of your life is of immense importance. And because next week, we are having our first eclipse in Leo near the South Node here in that part of your chart. And so there are just like weeks and weeks and weeks of lessons for you about this

area of your chart. And this area of your life is where you need to move into your leadership. It's where you need to be fully creatively self-expressed. It's where you need to be like, how else can I shine here? Do you know what I'm saying? This is not a time to hold back your gold, your personal gold, your personal disco ball, your personal performance, your personal way of articulating your life's work, your life's energy, your solar self, your vibrancy, is needed here and needed now. But not your ego. And this is a really weird combination. I got to be honest. It's hard to delineate because the South Node is about letting something go. It's saying that Leo-ishness is going to be on a decrease. But at the same time, Jupiter is here amplifying all things in Leo.

And so do they just cancel each other out? Sometimes they will. But this is how I want us to think about it. We need to purify, if that's a word that we can use, given how it's misused. We need to exfoliate. We need to let go of the contorted, maladaptive ways of being Leo in the world. And we all know those people who think they're fucking kings, who think they should be rulers just because their ego is the biggest in the room. We need less of that. What we need more of is what Jupiter in Leo can bring us. We need more faith. We need to take big oaths to be true to self and to serve the world. We need bigger generosity, people that have a understanding of how powerful and potent they can be when they lead with generosity, when they lead with abundance thinking

and a sense of self that is abundant. Because actually egomaniacs and megalomaniacs and whatever other words we want to use, they have a puny sense of self. Their sense of self is so tiny that they have to puff it up and project this big overarching supremacist vision of themselves, bare chested and on a horse with a gun or something like that. You know what I'm saying? If you have a really full sense of self,

If you feel filled up because you're loved and because you honor your oaths and you are a person of your word and you live in integrity, you don't need a big, huge, grandiose version of self. I mean, you might be fully idiosyncratic. You might be fabulous. You might get a lot of attention. But you don't have to dominate anyone or anything because you understand your power and how to work with it. And that's really where we want to stay. We want to let go of ideas of supremacy. We want to let go of

ideas of toxic celebrity culture. We want to diminish the ego maniacal ways in which our world, especially through technology, has been set up and has distorted our understanding of ourselves. and we want to encourage a greater sense of abundance through creative self-expression. I don't need to steal anything from you. I want to be fully expressed in and of myself, in my own right, in my own style, in my own way. I don't need to dominate you because I'm so fully lived out in myself. I'm having way too good of a time to even entertain such a ludicrous idea as wanting to control you or dominate you or overwhelm you. When I'm living fully in my creativity,

I don't need to do any of that. So that's where we're going. But that's the portal that we're in. And the week before eclipses, we want to just prepare. I'm going to be like, okay, where am I being full of myself? Where am I being really like stuck and prideful and feeling like I'm too big or I'm too good for that thing as it's too small for me? Where do I need to roll up my sleeves and get dirty and get to work. And where, on the other side of it, do I need to feel a greater sense of abundance in myself? Where do I need to feel my own royalty, not supremacy, but a sense of royalty in and of myself because I come from greatness because I come from the cosmos. I mean, I come from stardust for sake. Like, what could be more magnificent than that? I am a child of that.

I am a child of the Milky Way. I am a child of the universe. I am a child of all that glimmers and sparkles and is gorgeous in the world. I am a child of the dirt and the mountains and the sea and the ocean and the lakes and all of it, the trees, all of it. I am that. I'm no bigger than it and I'm not less than it. I am it. It is me. I'm part of it. I'm a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny speck of this gorgeous disco ball called life. I am one teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny reflection. I'm one teeny ray. I'm one little drop in the ocean. Whatever you want to say. I'm not bigger than it, but I'm not less than it. How do we get right size? South Node let's go of all of the projections. South Node is here to help us heal our relationship with ego and self and persona and whatever.

And Jupiter is here to remind us to take an oath to be true to ourselves and our essential nature, to take an oath to our own leadership that we need to move into, to take an oath to our own creativity that is so potent and powerful and gorgeous, it could birth. Who knows what? Everything, all of it. So that's what we're moving into. And three hours later, I'll get to this week's astrology. Okay, so this is what's happening this week. On Monday, Chiron is stationing retrograde. Chiron has just moved into Taurus, so now it's going to retrograde. And just like retrace its steps, this is a very, very new transit.

We're reviewing how to work that healing edge in the part of our chart that contains Taurus. Go and reread your Chiron horoscope in the Chani app or on channey.com. tell you how to focus here, how to understand this. But you might feel just a little bit of a, oh, that's my wound getting woken up on Monday. Because as Kairan stations, it pulls focus, it slows down. It's saying like, hey, slow down. Slow down. Just pay attention to this sensation. Try not to rush through this. Try not to think about it too much. Try to feel it in the body. And notice how it will have its own life and then it will pass. especially when we slow down, that whole process moves. I don't want to say faster, but you know what I'm saying?

It resolves in a way that feels very natural and timely and helpful. On Thursday, Venus moves into Libra where it is at home. This is gorgeous. This is helpful. This is wonderful astrology. This is a little key component to understanding something about the fall. because in the fall, Venus is going to station retrograde and retrograde all the way back into Libra. So it's not in its pre-retrograde shadow yet, but we are going to revisit this part of our chart, this journey here again. And so we're like in a pre-pre-shadow period. But on one level, Venus is just excellent in Libra. And Venus is going to want to bring about situations where justice and a quality and rebalancing can occur. It's also fun and flirty and cute

and wants to help us to create some beauty and some sweetness and to be devoted to that creation process. That's happening on Thursday the 6th. On the same day, the sun is going to make a trine to Saturn. Very nice, very stabilizing, very helpful in terms of remembering what is essential and important about how we shine and where we shine and amplifying that place in our lives and our chart. And then on Sunday, we have Mercury moving in to Leo as well. So now the sun is there and Mercury is there. And we want to talk about what we've learned

about the part of our chart that contains Leo. We want to talk in ways that help us to feel like, yeah, that would be fun to do. That would be a. way for me to feel more creatively self-expressed. Yes, that would be something that would be interesting to make. It's also about having conversations that are wild and evocative and that help us to imagine a way to do it that would be fun and that would be engaging. And it's just really like good storytelling astrology. But again, all of this is pretty minor compared to what happened last week and what is about to happen next week. So I want us to think about this week as a week that is going to help us to prepare, to soften, to let go in the places where we've gotten too

rigid, too prideful, too in our ego. I think egos are good, right? Like we have to have an ego in order, like I have to have a persona, personality to understand, to move through the world, to understand how to navigate things. But I also have to be able to make fun of it, make fun of my not take myself seriously, not take my roles seriously, like take them seriously and then also have a sense of humor about them. So we want to let go of the parts of us that have gotten too calcified, too rigid in our sense of self and identity and who we are and be able to play a little bit and be like, yes, please. Like if a clown walked in and started to make fun of me, could I laugh with them? If not, I've got a huge,

problem. If not, I might as well be that guy in the White House. You know, like, I might as well be a dictator because that's who dictators are. They are unable to be poked fun at. They have such a high level of fragility. They have such a lack of sense of self, truly self with a capital S, that they cannot be ridiculed. So make fun of yourself. See where you get rigid. See where you get controlling. See what you need to soften around in order to prepare for next week.

But please, please, please, please, please start to dig into the meaning of the part of your chart that contains Leo, what it means for you, how that works in your life, how that gets folded into your life's purpose. But above all else, what it means for you right now and how you're living into that area of your life because of all of the ways in which it's being activated astrologically for sure, but hopefully also you see the parallels in your own life and in the situations that happened last week, the week before, and that you feel are coming up for you next week. Remember, eclipses are a time where things end and begin. It's like one door closes, another opens. One leader falls, another one comes in.

It's like a game of musical chairs. One chair gets taken out. Boop, done. Sorry, you're out. Not you. But you know what I'm saying. Like opportunities crash in and close down. So whatever isn't meant to be, we'll get shaken loose during eclipse season.

whatever was meant for you will like timeline jump to that next iteration of whatever is going on for you. So think of this time period, basically from the end of July into the end of August as a portal. We were walking in one way and we're going to walk out the other way. We're moving in one way. We're going to move out the other way. We came in one way. We're going to leave adjusted in a different situation. and also understanding that part of our chart in a much deeper way.

And now it's time for a question from the audience. Hi, Cheney. Love you. Love the app. Love everything. I'm asking about Chiron. So, Chiron is in my first house, which is I'm a Gemini Rising. So my question is, what does it mean when Chiron and your rising are in the same sign? Thank you. Thank you so much. Such a great question. Basically, you have a one in 12 chance of Chiron being in your first house, which, you know, may or may not be fair to say. But everyone in your little cohort of people with Chiron and Gemini with a Gemini rising are going to have that signature. And so there's a way in which I like to look at it, which is how close is it to the

ascendant. Like is it within a couple of degrees of the ascendant? Is there any other planet there? If there's nothing else there and it's far away from the ascendant, like it's 20 degrees away, then it's still important because it's in your first house. So whatever's in your first house is prominent. But if it's not near anything, then it's a, I demote it a little bit. Why? Because it's Chiron and Chiron's a minor planet. It's not one of the seven traditional planets. And it doesn't quite carry the same heft to me as the other modern planets or slow-moving planets. So two things. Chiron is a centaur, so it's half-human, half-animal. So there's a double-bodiedness to it. You're already a Gemini rising, so that's already a double-bodied sign. So there's a both and here.

Chiron is both the wound and the healer, right? It's not the human. healer that became a healer because of the wound. That's not actually Kairan's story. Kairan is a teacher, a mentor, and is also the wound that never heals, that always teaches us and informs us. So for some of you that have Kiron in the first house, no matter what sign it's in, you will be a teacher. You will be someone who understands something about the woundedness of self and how that can inform you and help you to become someone who can hold space for people that have similar wounds. Some of you will be teachers. Some of you will be mentors. Some of you will be occupying that place of healer, mentor, teacher. If it's in Gemini, though, for you, it's like, do you write about

woundedness? Do you teach about it? Is there something you articulate about it? Is the very act of writing or teaching healing in and of itself because kairon is also the remedy is there's something about the remedy being words or knowledge or facts or data or ideas or that's how it comes to you is there something about the ways in which you articulate an idea or articulate yourself that is healing for other people to receive i think also we really come into understanding our Chiron about the age of 50, which I know you're very, very, very far from. But we have our first Chiron return in our early 50s around the age of 51, 52. And I think at that point, we really come to understand it. So it's not that everybody with Chiron in their first house have the identity of being

a healer or identify really strongly with their wounds, although maybe you have to see for yourself if that's true. But there's something about coming to understand the nature of yourself around the age of 51, 52, because that's the first time you'll have a Chiron return. And because it's so personal for you, it feels like there's something important that comes at that age in terms of understanding what to do with it. But I think on one note for everybody with Chiron in the first house in Gemini, it's It's like go and study the things that you feel like you want to study. Go learn. Go question. Go on some

sort of intellectual quest for the knowledge that's going to feel healing for you because there's something intrinsic there. And then for everybody with Chiron in the first house, it's what does the body need? What does the body teach you? What are you learning about the body and how? are you applying that in your life? All right, Chelle. Like a lot of you could be body workers, you know, I'll just say because Chiron's like part of the root word of chiropractor, like hands-on healing. So you could have a knack or a desire for that or to receive that. It could be one of the things. All right, Chelle. Thank you so much for your questions. I love them. I love answering them. Please keep sending them in. You can do so in the Chani app. You can leave us a voice memo there.

I will see you back here next week for the eclipse in Leo. You knew what I was going to say. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. It's a big one. A lot of it's going to start to already take place, though, as you're listening to this. I'm recording this in June. I don't know what's going on in August, but I know that these themes will be strong by the time you're listening to this.

All right. I'm sending you so much love, so many blessings. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week. Bye for now.