Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of August 4th, 2025: Problem-solving in private

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Episode 242In 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 4th, 2025, blurs lines and clarifies connections. Mars faces off with Saturn and Neptune in a tug-of-war, causing friction around our boundaries and the path ahead. And the Full Moon in Aquarius spotlights our collective power as outsiders. This is a time for problem-solving, strategizing, and finding strength in solitude. But it might get murky. Give yourself plenty of space and grace until the chaos clears.Let’s dive in.This episode covers:Mars’ ingress into Libra on Wednesday, August 6thMars’ trine to Uranus on Friday, August 8thMars’ opposition to Saturn on Friday, August 8thMars’ opposition to Neptune on Saturday, August 9thFull Moon in Aquarius on Saturday, August 9thMars’ trine to Pluto on Sunday, August 10thThis episode was recorded on 7/8/2025.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.

Three things about this week. This week is a week that you and I are going to refuse to overwhelm ourselves. We are going to keep our priority in our line of focus. We are not going to get sidelined or sidetracked with things that do not matter in this moment. We are going to put first things first. We're going to focus on what has to get done here and now. And then from there, we can make other decisions. But we are not going to take on other people's work for them. We are not going to say yes to things that we do not need to do and we do not want to do. We're going to be very, very conscientious about how we use our time and our energy. And we're going to see it as exceptionally valuable.

Number two, we are going to remember our collective power. we are going to remember that when forces push so many of us onto the margins, that we are the masses. And the masses are going to, in some way, shape or form this week, strategize towards an end goal. Number three, we're going to remember, no matter what this week brings up, that next week, August 11th, is one of the most auspicious days of the year. And we are going to move through whatever challenges this week brings, knowing full well

that all of the focus and all of the hard work and all of the strategizing and all of the negotiating and all of the refocusing and all of the fuel that it takes us to go through this fire, this fight, this mountain, this whatever it is, we're up against this week is, is going to be so worth it because next week on August 11th, there is a signature of so much abundance and sweetness and love and blessings and we are going to be ready for it. We're going to do our work this week so that next week we can plant seeds of collective abundance, nourishment, enhancements of all kinds. And just like, a lot of pleasure and joy and beauty because we deserve it and we need it. Hello and welcome.

This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I'm your host, Chani Nicholas. I'm your Astro Bestie. I am here to talk about the astrology for the week of August 4th. Every week of the year is different. Every week of the year has its own quality. And in this podcast, we go through the quality of the week and also of the days that make up the week because every single day has its own thing. And then we look and see how it's all compiled together and how we can best use it. And then we know like next week will be totally different. So nothing lasts and nothing lasts. You know what I mean?

The good stuff doesn't last. The hard stuff doesn't last. All of it folds into the next thing. All of it is a series of events that create a whole situation. and a whole story and that whole story is, in fact, our life. So let's enjoy it. Let's make the most of each thing. Now, if you're like, oh, no, why is she talking about doing hard things this week? I already have hard things to do. Good. That means you're just living out the astrology. That's the thing. A lot of the times the astrology or the astrology always mirrors what we're going through

in our own life. So sometimes it shows up a little unexpected, like it shows up in a way where we're like, oh, yeah, that is the astrology. And sometimes we're like, well, I'm already doing that. So check done. So if you're already doing something this week that feels like, who, that's a monumental task, that's going to take a lot of strategy, that's going to take a lot of my organization, that's going to take a lot of planning, that's going to take a lot of trusting, that's going to take a lot of faith, that's going to take a lot of elbow grease, that's going to take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, that's going to take a lot of my effort. Good. Mars is opposing. Saturn and Neptune. It's a messy, good, hard time. It is a situation that demands the best from us

and demands that we move through impossibly small channels. It's like everything gets kind of clustered and messy and mushy and we have to find a way through. So don't expect it to be uncomplicated. And then if it is, if everything this week is really straightforward, congratulations. You got a get out of this situation free card. And then if it isn't, if it is messy, if it is hard, if it is sticky, if it is tricky, you already knew and you were prepared for it. You know why? Because you did not over-schedule yourself. I've been barking about this for weeks now. If you listen to the year ahead, I was barking about this last year. At this point of the year, we are going to remember to be spacious. We are not going to

fall for urgency culture. We are going to be strategic. We are going to have a broad bird's eye view. And we're going to say, this looks dire. And maybe it is. This looks hard. And maybe it is. This looks tricky. And maybe it is. But I'm not going to understand how to approach. this moment if I don't take a deep breath and give myself a moment to think clearly about this. What would somebody outside of this situation see, witness, understand that I can't see because I'm too immersed in the problem, in the dynamic, in the situation? What kind of perspective am I lacking? That's one of the main questions. You can think about it this way.

What kind of perspective would an outsider have right now? What kind of perspective would somebody have that wasn't embroiled in the internal thing that this is? What would somebody living on the margins say about this situation, this setup, this scenario? because people that live on the outskirts or people that live on the margins or people that are outsiders, rebels, whatever you want to call them, us, have a lot less at stake. People that want to live in the center and reap all the benefits from being in the center where the power is are not going to want to risk much because they want to remain in the center. So those that are on the outskirts already have a better vantage point because they're not being coerced or they're not being muddied.

Their perspective isn't being muddied by wanting something from the center. Why am I talking about all of this? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's a full moon in Aquarius this week. apart from the fact that Mars is going to do a tete-a-tete, a tug-a-war with Saturn, with Neptune, creating a lot of boundaries, creating obstacles, putting some foggy stop signs in our path. Like we don't see the stop sign until we get right up close to it because the fog is, you know, distracting us or obscuring it.

that's the kind of week it is in the biggest scheme of things. But in the middle of all of that on Saturday, there's a full moon in Aquarius. Now, Aquarius is the outsider. Aquarius is a sign that talks about those that live outside of the center. They do not live in the middle of town. They live on the outskirts. Their perspective is not from the center. It is not about getting attention.

it is about deflecting attention, moving to the outskirts so that we can see the whole system so that we can get a better bird's eye view of the situation so that we can think clearly and therefore we can have a good set of problem solving skills, abilities, attributes. Aquarius is one of the best problem solvers out there because it wants to see the whole. It wants to consider everybody. It wants to think of all of humanity before it makes a judgment or a plan. He wants to consider the whole thing. What's the system we're living in?

Who are all the players? Who are all the stakeholders? Who is everybody here? Let me see the whole lay of the whole lay of it. the land, then I'll make a judgment. So having a full moon in Aquarius is very much about that ability to have a broader understanding of something. And yes, it's about people power. It's about all of humanity. It is sitting in the same sign as Pluto, who's just recently moved into Aquarius for many, many years to come. So there is an emphasis on,

on this, the power of the people signature. But not only that, this full moon sits right next to the goddess asteroid palace Athena. Palace Athena is the strategist. Palace Athena is the warrior goddess. And palace Athena is said to, in the Greco-Roman pantheon, spring forth from Zeus's head. So it's a very intellectually creative signature. to have anything with Palis Athena, especially in Aquarius, with this full moon. It's saying, okay, let's think about this strategically.

Let's think about the problems at hand with the greatest amount of space and perspective that we can. And because it is a situation that's happening in Aquarius, because it's a full moon in Aquarius, Palis Athena is there, Pluto is there. We know that there's something happening with the people because that is part of what Aquarius signifies. And there's something happening with the outsider because that is another signification of Aquarius. And then there's something about the strategy of the outsider that we might want to embody right now because that is Palisathetian. Athena next to the full moon sitting also in the same side as Pluto, all in Aquarius.

What is the strategy of the outsider? And how can we apply it to this moment? And then what is being spotlit in terms of who's on the outside, who's on the inside? What's the fight? What's the situation that we're in right now? I'm rolling my eyes if you're listening to this and not watching it because that feels like every day, but it seems very pronounced right now around this full moon. Again, the full moon is going to happen on Saturday the 9th of August. Leading up to that on Wednesday, Mars moves in to

Libra. Libra is not a sign that Mars does well in. Why? Because Libre wants to keep the peace. Mars is the warrior. These two things have a hard time. So we know that there's going to be an amplification of what we're fighting for, how we're fighting for peace, if that's even a thing we can do, but how we want to fight for justice, for sure. And then right away on Friday, Mars makes a trine to Uranus, which is very exciting and it's very innovative. And it's very much about how do we communicate with each other differently? How do we come together in a way that feels invigorating and new? Again, how do we think in a different way? How do we think in a different way? how do we approach the situation from a opposite kind of perspective?

Because Mars is in the sign opposite from what it likes to be in. So in a lot of ways, it acts like a contrarian. So there's another way in which this like contrarian outsider vibe is very present this week. Also on Friday, though, Mars then makes an opposition to Saturn, which is one of the hardest things it can do, is just like a major stop sign. Absolutely not. Cannot pass go. Go back. It's 49 steps, 57 steps. Like, go back to the beginning. No. And then it also opposes Neptune, which is like, wait a minute. Where am I? Hold on. The fog rolled in. I can't figure anything

out. I don't know where I'm going. All I know is that I keep bumping up into these walls that I didn't even know we're there. That's the Saturn of it and the Neptune of it gets us all turned about and confused. So again, I want us this week to just focus on the things we have to do for sure, for sure, for sure. Don't even consider the extra stuff until you are free and clear of the duties that are right in front of you. And then by Saturday, we've got the full moon, Mars then completes this opposition with Neptune. Again, we're feeling foggy, we're feeling fuzzy, we're feeling unsure. The full moon highlights this kind of like outsider quality or collective fight that we are in. And then on Sunday, Mars makes a glorious, triumphant,

trying to Pluto. And it all works out, or at least some of it works out, or at least something works out. Now, I want to highlight something else about an outsider kind of quality here. Aquarius in the traditional system is ruled by Saturn. Where's Saturn right now? Well, it's in Ares. That's the sign of its fall. So it's not necessarily an outsider, but it's fallen. And so it's like when we end up, you know,

stumbling and falling down into a ditch. It's not that we're necessarily like an outsider, but we're not on the inside. Like we've fallen out of favor in a way. And so Saturn right now, the ruler of this flight, moon is fallen. And so again, it does give this moment this week a quality of like, well, what can we learn when we're lying in the gutter? What can we learn from the moments that where we have fallen down? What can we learn from the opposite side of the situation? What can we learn from

the contrarians? What can we learn from the fallen ones from ourselves when we've fallen when we've really messed up and we've done something to kind of like keep us on the outside. And what can we learn about being an outsider ourselves? What have we had to develop in ourselves in order to live our lives? I think some of the biggest blessings in my life have come because I've had to figure it out myself. I got kicked out. I was not let in. I was not part of the group. I was not part of the group. I did not have a safe place to go to for a very long time until I built it for myself. And that is something that no one can ever take away from me. And that's what I want us to think about. Whatever our personal story matters and doesn't matter. Whatever our experience in

the world matters. And also, what are we going to do with this moment in all the ways in which we feel on the outside. With all the ways in which we feel like everything is against us or the odds are stacked against us or there's something where we've like had a position, we thought we were good, and then we feel like we've fallen through the floorboards, collectively, personally, emotionally, politically, whatever it is, all of the things. What can we learn from this position? What strength does this position actually have?

to teach us about that we have in ourselves or that we need to develop? And what are the skills that that archetype can teach us the outsider archetype? What skills do they have? What skills do we need to possess in that position? And how can those skills and how can those ways of being or how are those skills and how are those ways of being exactly what we need right now? exactly what we need right now, no matter what is going on. That's my read on the week. And then remembering that on Monday, we've got this glorious Venus Jupiter conjunction, which says the power and the beauty that we yearn for right now is right in front of us. It's right beside us. It's local. Love the shit out of everything that you come in contact with,

now. Love everyone that your neighbors with as much as you can. Be generous, be supportive, be generative in your local spaces, in your local communities with the people that are right here beside you and take note of the incredible abundance that you create because of that. Do something special on Monday. I don't care what it is, how small, how large, how medium it is. Just do something right down your individual. intentions on Monday, August 11th for more beauty, for more love, for more abundance. All right. Now we're going to do a little question from the audience.

Today's question is, are we more our sun sign or our rising sign? And the answer is yes. Yes, you are. You are both. There's not one that is more or the other. But the reason why this person and many people ask this question is because I tell people to listen to their rising sign. Or if you go in the app and you listen to your reading for the week, you're listening to

your rising sign reading for the week. Why is that? The rising sign sets up every single house in your chart. So if you listen to your rising sign, you're hearing about what the planets are up to. in certain areas of your life. If you're listening to your sun sign reading or you're reading your sun sign horoscope only, then you're only reading about how something impacts your sun, one planet, not the area of life. And your sun is only occupying a certain degree. So that's only going to be true when that planet gets to pretty much the exact degree that correlates with

your sun. So if you're reading your sun sign horoscope for a Pluto transit, that's only going to be relevant for like two years out of a almost 20 year span of time. If you're reading something about Uranus in Gemini impacting your son, that's only going to be true. A, of all, that's for both of these examples. It's only going to be true for certain signs. And B of all, it's only going to be true for like a year of your life. It's not going to be true for the whole seven years. Not really.

Like maybe a little, but not really. It's only going to be true. So say your son is in Libra. And Uranus right now is in Gemini. So we're going to talk about a trine between Uranus and Gemini and your son and Libra. It's only really going to be potent during the weeks and months where Uranus is in the same degrees as your son. Whereas if you're reading or listening to your rising sign, we're talking about the whole domain of your chart that it's moving through. So we're talking about the house that it's moving through. It's not talking about the house that it's moving through. It's not talking about

the aspect to one planet. Now, that has nothing to do with whether you resonate more with your sun sign or your rising sign. This is the problem is that modern astrology has conflated the two. Why? Because the sun sign horoscope took the place of the rising sign. Because you don't know your rise. Most people don't know their rising sign. They didn't, especially like a couple hundred years ago when horoscopes started to be written. Or like, yeah, 150, whatever, whenever the printing press came about. So horoscopes were written in the easiest possible way they could be. Most people know when they're born.

Most people know, or they can read a list of like, you're a Leo if you're born between this date in July and this date in August, pretty much, give or take a day, depending on what year we're talking about. So most people can locate, oh yeah, I'm a Leo son. So then they read that horoscope. But that's only happened over the last couple hundred years. That's never how things were looked at before. It's always been through the rising sign because the rising sign is the marker of the moment you were born. The sun is just where the sun was during. your birth. And for the most part, it was there for days before and days after. And yes, the degree matters. But the rising sign changes every couple hours. And it's all dependent on where you were

born and what time you were born in. We stand in that place, exact place and time that you were born. And we look over to the eastern horizon and say, what sign is rising up over the horizon? That's their rising sign. That's the sign that says they were born. Not your sun sign. Your rising sign tells us when you were born and where you were born or what was rising, the exact moment you were born, the exact place that you were born. The sun sign does not tell us that. It's very important, but it's different. So you can read whatever.

You read your rising sign, read your sun sign. But just know that it's not really as applicable to your son as it is to the domain of life that it is the domain of your chart, the house in your chart, that it is impacting, that the transit is impacting. Now, there's a way in which you can look at your whole chart through your sun sign and pretend that your sun sign is your rising sign. And if you don't know your time of birth, that's a great way to do it. So you can look at it like that. But it's not, if you know your rising sign. It's just a way more personalized and way more specific way of looking at your chart. But you're both. You know, like astrology isn't only a personality test. It's also talking about all

the areas of your life. And your rising sign is the only area of your life that's you. And when you read or listen to things about your rising sign, you're getting to understand the entirety of your life. If you're just listening to your son's sign, again, and you know your rising sign, then you're only listening to your chart through the doorway of your son. And again, those longer transits are not going to impact your son that whole time they're in a sign. But they are going to impact the house that they're traveling through the entire time they're traveling through that sign. I hope that helps. I hope that. makes sense. I know it's really complicated in a way. Then in another way, once you kind of

get the pieces, it gets to be really simple. All right, send in your questions. We love to answer them. Come back next week. We get to talk about the fact that not only do Venus and Jupiter hook up, link up, make a conjunction on August 11th. Mercury also stations direct, yay. And Saturn and Uranus make a sex style, which is very exciting and very invigorating, very phenomenal astrology next week. On the heels of this really, you know, tougher, harder astrology to work with. And that is the signature of 2025. It is very, very extreme in all the good ways and in all the challenging ways. Sending you so much love. Bye for name.