Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of December 2nd, 2024: Unearth the truth with Mars retrograde

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Episode 207 In 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 December 2nd, 2024, urges us to check the facts. On Thursday, the Sun and Mercury (the messenger planet) come together to clarify what’s real and dispel what’s too good to be true. The next day, Mars (the planet of action) stations retrograde in Leo, inviting us to slow down and review our strategies. The next seven days set us up to unearth the truth and reclaim our power. Let’s get into it. This episode covers: Venus’ trine to Uranus on Monday, December 2nd Mercury’s opposition to Jupiter on Wednesday, December 4th The Sun’s square to Saturn on Wednesday, December 4th Venus’ sextile to Neptune on Wednesday, December 4th The Mercury cazimi on Thursday, December 5th The beginning of Mars’ retrograde on Friday, December 6th Mercury’s square to Saturn on Friday, December 6th Venus’ ingress into Aquarius on Friday, December 6th Venus’ conjunction to Pluto on Saturday, December 7th The Sun’s opposition to Jupiter on Saturday, December 7th The end of Neptune’s retrograde in Pisces on Saturday, December 7th This episode was recorded on 10/02/2024. 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.

Hi, the following episode of the astrology of the week ahead was taped before I knew the election results in the United States of America. So if things sound aggressively positive given the situation, that's why. I needed to get ahead of the game so that our team could go on winter break and things could happen in an orderly fashion. And this is what happens sometimes. So I hope that the astrology still lands in a really helpful way. I just don't want you to ever think that I don't take an incoming fascist leader seriously. I take this situation that we're in exceptionally seriously. I think it's going to require all of us to do everything we can in every single moment that we can do it. And I'm here with you.

We are in community together and I just didn't want to have you thinking like, wow, is this so spiritually bypassy and has Chani totally lost the plot? I haven't. I'm with you. And in the new year, we're going to be doing episodes much closer to the time we actually air them. But until then, please enjoy and see how the astrology lands as I'm talking about it without knowing the type of world we're moving into. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Are you ready to begin an 11-week journey of reclaiming our power? Me either, but here we go. Hello and welcome. This is the Astrology of the Week Ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro Bestie, Channy, Nicholas. And this week, this week, y'all. is the week we begin Mars retrograde. Now Mercury is already retrograde. So we are already being asked to review something about the ways in which the mechanics of our lives, of our systems, of our schedules, of our schedules, of our communications, of some situation works or does not work. Mercury retrogrades are excellent at pointing out the flaw in the system. What is about to break, what was never going to work, what we need to figure out so that it can be

more functional and so that it can be more useful in our lives. I think Mercury retrogrades are really helpful, again, for pointing out the things that are faulty to begin with. So we're already in a slowing down part of the year, but nothing can say slowing down like Mars stationing retrograde because Mars is the planet of energy. Mars is the planet of our ability to take a direction and go with it. Mars is the planet of conflict. Mars is the planet of strife.

Mars is the battle planet, the planet of war. Mars is a really difficult planet. But without Mars, we would never be able to defend ourselves. Without Mars, we would never be able to puncture the barriers that are set up to keep us back and to keep us in place, quote unquote, and to keep us from achieving what we are meant to achieve. Mars is the barrier breaker, the boundary breaker. And of course, some boundaries and barriers we don't want crossed like our civil human rights, like the sanctity of life on this planet. We shouldn't be just able to break those boundaries if we have enough money or enough systemic power. That should not be something that we can do. But in this iteration of this world, it is. So Mars, especially within the systems we live within, spells out some pretty challenging situations because it is a

planet that is often associated with harm or violence. So when it's retrograde, it doesn't mean that all of that runs wild. It can mean that we have to be that. It can mean that we have. have a little less energy. It can mean that we're needing to review our relationship to our power to the ways in which we use our fuel, right? Anger is related to Mars. Anything that raises the heat, gets our blood pumping and, you know, feels like an overheated kind of situation is a Mars type of situation. So when it's retrograde, we want to review our relationship to that aspect of ourselves. And all that to say, anger in injustice or anger as a response to injustice is a righteous response. It is an understandable response. It is a human response.

But if we are only ever fueled by anger, we'll never get to the solutions needed to dismantle the systems and to recreate them. Because only anger will burn us up. It will burn us out. It will wreak havoc on our systems and on our creativity, on our ability to think strategically and creatively. And that is one of the main points about Mars. Because Mars is a warrior, any good warrior has strategy. And so we want to review our relationship to strategy with ourselves, with our own life, with every situation that we're in. What is it that we want to get to, either at the end of our life or at the end of this meeting, at the end of this day, at the end of this week? If it's a sense of accomplishment, if it's a sense of

integrity, if it is living in our own truth, then how are we going to get there? If it's by protecting my time so that I can rest more deeply or enjoy my family and my friends more wholeheartedly, then what is my strategy for doing that? I can't just be like, oh, I would like to enjoy my partner, my friends, my besties more. But I'm going to let everybody else just swallow up my time. I'm going to let everybody else just waste my time and just hope that I've got extra time left over for the people and the things that I most want to prioritize. We can't do that. That's not a strategy. So we have to know that strategy is oftentimes, not going to give us the immediate result, especially not in a Mars retrograde.

So we are ending the year and we are beginning next year solidly with a Mars retrograde. Mars will be retrograde from December 6th all the way through to February 23rd, 2025, 11 weeks. That means we're being invited, yes, to slow down and to not overhaul. overwhelm ourselves in the new year, to not overcommit in the new year, to approach the new year with an attitude of slowness. Is that an attitude? I don't know. With the priority being, I'm going to move thoughtfully, strategically, but slowly into the new year. Things are not going to pick up until like March, but then in March, we've been in March, we've

got a Venus retrograde. There's a lot of retrogrades in the beginning of the year. I'll just say that. So the first quarter of the year especially is pretty jammed up with retrogrades, which isn't a bad thing. It's just the thing that's happening, which means we're going to have to go back and review certain aspects of our lives personally and of our situation collectively. So, So when Mars is retrograde, it is a time for us to collectively look at the battles that we're in. It's a time for us to collectively think about the strategy that we're working with. It is time for us collectively to think about what is the fight that is worth having because I can't fight every battle.

I can't take on every clown at the circus. I've got to be very, very strategic and I've got to be very conscientious of my energy, of the gas that is in my tank. Now, one of the things that the beginning of this Mars retrograde, so Mars will be in Leo until January 6th. So while it's in Leo, it is commenting on some part of your chart that is excessive. massively important. The part of your chart that contains Leo is the part of your chart that you've got to live into in order to feel like you are fully in your vitality. What do I mean by this? Well, let's say you're an Ares rising. That means that Leo is your fifth house using whole sign houses. So Leo being your fifth house means that

that part of the ways in which you shine is through creative self-expression, through having fun, through hobbies, through having a good time, and also through children. And it's also the house of sex. So all kinds of good times. But there is something about those areas of life or those aspects of life that is so important for you to fold into your identity, no matter what sign your son is in, I want you to start to think about folding in these things. If you're tourist rising, it means that Leo is your fourth house of home and family and foundation. It doesn't mean you're not a wild child. It doesn't mean you don't travel around the world. It doesn't mean you don't have a good time and do all kinds of things. But it does mean that if you're tourist rising, there's something so

essential about creating home and family in the ways that you want to that helps you to feel like you are living a life of purpose. If you're Gemini rising, then Leo, by whole sign, is your third house of communications in daily life. So it's kind of like a doubling down of the meaning. But if you're Gemini rising, communications are a huge important thing. So writing, teaching, learning, facilitating, comms, media, all of it, super important. And this Mars retrograde is going to help you to reconnect with the things. that maybe you haven't connected with in a while in that area of your life, it's going to remind you about your agency in the area of your chart that contains Leo.

Cancer rising is a second house. So it's money, it's assets, but it's also livelihood. It's how you make a living. There's something about how you facilitate resources or how you nourish your resources or how you nourish other people through your resources that is essential to your identity. Maybe it's you own your own business. Maybe it's you are your product. Maybe it's you are the thing that you're selling. Maybe it is a lot of different things, but it doesn't have to be career. But for a lot of people, for a lot of cancer risings, the career, the work, the livelihood, the how we make a living, the what we do when we make a living or what we do with our resources is key to feeling vibrant. If you're Leo rising, it's you. You are the project. You were the one. You were the thing that you've got to develop. It's very important for you to develop a shiny sense of self that you feel like you can be full wattage when you want to. Not every single

moment of the day, but you've got to have a stage to shine your light upon. You've got to get some applause and appreciation. Very important. Don't feel any way about it. This Mars retrograde is going to remind you something about your personal power and how to reclaim it. If you're Virgo rising, then Leo is your 12th house, a behind-the-scenes life. Now, having your son rule this part of your chart, having Leo in your 12th house is kind of like an Olivia Pope vibe sometimes, right? It's like we can do some really amazing things behind the scenes. And that's how we shine or that's part of what helps us to feel vital is by giving ourselves some solitude. It's by going away and doing the thing out of sight so that nobody knows, but we're kind of like able to go and do something that is

necessary, but that we don't want everybody talking about or knowing about. It's also great for healers and people that work within the systems that want to abolish the prison industrial complex. It's about going into places that are also outside of public jurisdiction or they're outside of public domain or they're outside of like the public eye. And I don't know if I said all that right, but you know what I mean? It's like we put people away in institutions. And then so people that have Virgo rising and sometimes in. important placements in the 12th house, they might work in that area of life. So to be Virgo Rising

doesn't mean you have to do that, but it does mean there's something about the inner life or the hidden life that's very important for you to delve into. This Mars Retrograde is going to help you to reclaim some aspect of your energy that might have gotten locked away or hidden somewhere away from your kind of conscious knowing. Liber Rising, Surprise, surprise, Leo for Liber RISings, Leo is your 11th house of friends and groups and associations and parties and being on the go and being a social butterfly. So Mars retrograding through this part of your chart is reminding you about your power in the group. You have power in the group. Never forget your power in the collective. It's not that you're more powerful than the collective. You are powerful in the collective.

You are just as powerful, just as potent as the group. So this Mars retrograde is going to be really important for your group work. If you're Scorpio rising, then Leo is your 10th house, which means that you've got to find a place in the world on the world stage that you feel like you can shine. You don't have to take up all the space. You don't have to suck all the air out of the room. You don't have to be a celebrity. You have to be a pop star. It just means that you do need to shine out in the world. That is a central component to you feeling like you're living a life of purpose. And this Mars retrograde is going to show like, you know, some of the conflicts there and some of the strife there, but also how you need to

reclaim your power and fully be in your agency out in the world. If you are sadd-rising, then Leo is your ninth house of surprise, surprise, travel, education, long-term plans, like the big, huge journey, also publishing, anything that you put out into the world, also law. So Mars Retrograde, for those of you that work in law, for those of you that are trying to pass laws, for those of you that are trying to disrupt harmful laws or change them. This will be an excessively important Mars retrograde. And, you know, obviously, things will be shut down over the last part of December and the first part of January. But there's important things happening for you to review in that area of life.

For teachers, for people that travel a lot, those kinds of issues might get a little complicated. and it's also a beautiful moment for you to reclaim your agency from any kind of paradigm that you have lost your agency to. So any kind of religion or spiritual tradition or practice that you feel like you've kind of lost yourself to. It's a good time to reclaim. And also, it's just a really important time for you to be reorienting yourself towards your North Star of Meaning because the ninth house where Leo is for you is about orienting towards what has meaning in our life. So this will be a rerouting of sorts. Then if you have Capricorn rising, Leo is your eighth house of shared resources, of taxes, debts, loans, but also grants. So it's about what you do

with the resources and the finances that you receive from other people or other institutions. This is an important time to be like, is this collaboration? is this collaboration the thing I need to go towards? The eighth house is also the place of grief and of loss and of longing. And so this might be an important moment for you to be reclaiming some of your energy, reclaiming some of the things that got lost to issues that have gone ungrieved in your life. if we have ungrieved ghosts, they will distort our present. So we have to go back in and say, like, what have I not grieved fully? What have I not really sat with? And how have I been losing my energy to that? Because I've been resisting it for so long. So Capricorn Rising folks, part of your

identity, part of you feeling vibrant, this might sound weird, but part of you feeling vibrant is A, to understand, like, joint finances and to understand how to make more out of your collaborations and how to manage other people. You make excellent producers and you can really take other people's talents and be like, oh, we should do this and this and this. And then we can flourish. We can both, like, flourish in these ways. And there's something here that you know something about difficulty and hardship.

That's just Capricorn Rising as well. And that really fully going into those aspects of life, actually, you know that that makes you feel more alive, which is true. It's something we all hide from. But your job here, and especially with this Mars retrograde, is to reclaim the power of that. Because if we actually sit with and be with the fact that everything we love in the physical plane is going to leave, including ourselves, that we actually get to live more fully into the present. So that is your superpower. And that's part of what Mars retrograde wants to help you reclaim. If you're Aquarius rising, then Leo is right out in front of you. Leo is your 7,000 committed relationships. And this Mars retrograde is going to help you to work through your own agency, maybe agency that you've given up in relationships, or agency that your partners are given up in relationships. and it's going to get you both in whatever partnership. I'm talking business. I'm talking your

platonic partnerships, but they have to be committed partnerships. And romantic, of course, your clients, if you have them, anyone you've got a contract with, you'll be parsing out like, oh, that's your stuff. This is my stuff. This is where I have agency. That's where you have agency. Don't give me your power. You keep it. I'll keep mine. And then what can we do together? And also, you know, and people might find this interesting or weird, but people with Aquarius Rising have Leo in the seventh house, which means that partnerships are a big part of your identity, that being in partnerships are really important to you. Again, they can be platonic. They don't have to be romantic. But there's something about the partnership that helps you to kind of come

more fully into yourself. That's true for everybody, but astrologically, the setup is very, very true. And this Mars retrograde reminds you of what you need in relationships and that, again, you have agency in relationships and that it's up to you to say, I need this, I want this, I don't want that, I do want this. Pisces are last. Paises has Leo in the sixth house by Holstein. And that means that part of how you need to feel vibrant or part of what you need to do to feel vibrant and alive like you're living at your purpose is to be of service. It's to be of service. It's to be. It's to to do things just because you want to do them, because you believe that this is the thing to do, because you want to be of service. This is also the place of work, work schedules, whether it's

domestic work or job, job work. It doesn't matter. It's work schedules, daily life routines, pets, and also your health. So Mars retrograde here is like, hey, look at these things. Where are you overheating, Leo rising and Pisces rising, I want to make sure that you understand. You don't want to overheat at this time. So letting your anger run wild, letting cortisol spikes run wild. I'm not saying you don't have a reason for those two things. I'm just saying, is there something you can do to manage that to bring it down? We want to work on our ability to be anti-inflammatory in every way possible. Pisces rising, this is a really good. good time to rework your work schedules to be like, okay, I'm closing down the year. This is how I worked

in 2024. How am I going to want to work in 2025? That's different than what I did because this stuff didn't work. This stuff did. I'm going to take what worked. I'm going to let go of the rest. And I'm going to move into the new year knowing that I'm rethinking, reworking this area of life. So this is what the first part of the Mars retrograde is about. Now, Mars will be retrogating through Leo until January 6th. So we have one month with this. And then it will move back into cancer. And once it does that, we'll talk about what house that's happening in. If you want to know more about it, listen to your reading this week. I go into great detail about it. And we'll talk even about where Mars goes back when it's, goes back into cancer. But just know that the beginning of this Mars retrograde is so much about our leadership and about our identity and about what we need to review and reclaim in regards to our agency and our power and our ability to do the things that we need to do because it's in Leo. In Leo is the sign that is ruled by the sun and the sun is the leader. The sun is the royal. The

sun is the one who gives us the light and the heat that we need. And Mars is the warrior. Mars is the one that goes out and does battle. Mars is the one that is like, I got the courage. I just have the energy. I don't even think about courage. I just go. So when it's retrograde, we review our relationship to that and remind ourselves, this is where I have power. Okay. Where did I get lost? Where did I give up my agency? What did I give my agency up to? And why? Again, we always have good reason to do it. It's not about a judgment. And it's not about the fact that it's all personal, right? We live within systems that demand that we feel disempowered. That's how they function, is they want to overwhelm us and disempower us and make us feel like we are ugly and not. not good so that we'll buy all their stuff and be cogs and their wheel. So I'm not saying it's separate from that. It's very connected to that. And is there a way for us to reclaim the things that we

can, reclaim the power that we have in any way, shape, or form? Okay. So that's like the next 11 weeks, but specifically the Mars and Leo thing is the next, let's say, four weeks. Once it gets into cancer, then it talks much more about our agency to nourish ourselves, our agency to protect ourselves, our agency to make sure that we understand our emotional life and how we want to work with it. It's much more about our moon because the moon rules cancer. So we'll talk about that. It's really interesting that Mars is retrograding through both signs that are about the luminaries. Leo is the sign that the sun rules.

Cancer is a sign that the moon rules. The sun and the moon are the two luminaries of our chart. They say so much about who we are and what we need to do in this lifetime. So I will say people with placements in Leo and cancer will get especially connected to this Mars retrograde. And, you know, people with Leo rising and cancer rising, especially, especially. because it will be in your first house for a good long time. All right. That is the basis of Mars Retrograde, Mars Stations Retrograde on Friday, the 6th.

Please go read your Mars Horoscope in the Chani app under the current Sky section of the app and also read your horoscope on chani.com. You can read those at any time. They are both free of charge. Now let's talk about just the little old astrology of the week that is part of the Mars retrograde, surrounds the Mars retrograde. On Monday, we've got Venus, Trine, Uranus. Love this for us. It's about being able to be experimental in our relationships or in regards to how we enjoy ourselves.

On Wednesday, we've got a Mercury making an opposition, a Mercury's retrograde, making opposition to Jupiter. This is the second one it's making. It is a lot of hype. It's a lot of excitement. It's a lot of like, ooh, I love this info. And at the same time, right after it, Mercury is going to square Saturn. The sun is going to square Saturn. And there's going to be a Kazimi as these things happen, which means there's going to be like good news or like big hype or something that seems like too good to be true. And then all of a sudden it's going to be proved wrong or there's going to be a limit put on it. Or there's this feeling of inhaling, exhaling. And Mercury is a planet that is associated with the lungs, with the arms, with the hands. So we can think about this. The inhale is Mercury making an opposition to Jupiter. And then right away, it squares Saturn with the sun as the sun and Mercury come together. So there's a big opportunity and absolute limits and restrictions that we have to work within.

So it feels very expansive and restrictive at the same time. Or it's something expansive happening within a very restrictive situation. Or it's just the right type of molding and shape and boundaries for us to have a true expansive experience within. Because we feel, I think, more expansive when we know we're also like emotionally contained or psychologically contained. then we can really sore, right? If we have no boundaries, no limits, no restrictions, it can feel a little like we are untethered or a little disorienting. So this is the inhale, exhale. And I just want us to remember that this week. Inhale, exhale, because Saturn and Jupiter are about to make their next square, and that is very inhale, exhale. Where do we expand? Because

of the boundaries or where are the boundaries? How can we expand into the fullness of them? This is the law. This is the structure. This is the way things have to work. What can we do within that framework? That's a huge theme that runs through Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as Mars station's retrograde. And then Venus, after doing a couple of cute things on Monday and Wednesday, trying to Uranus, sex style to Neptune, very romantic as the Sun Square, Saturn, very realistic. Again, we're working with opposites. Jupiter is in Gemini. We want to really embrace the polarities, the opposites, the paradox. Venus then moves into Aquarius, where it abruptly meets up with Pluto. So, Friday into Saturday, we have Venus making a conjunction with Pluto.

which is a deep and cathartic relationship journey. So there's something here at the end of the week that also spells out a very important moment together. So whatever your relationships are going through, this will be a very transformative little pit stop because it's quick. Venus is still moving. It won't get into its shadowy pre-retrograde place until the end of January. So this is a little beat. But it's happening as Mars Station's retrograde. It's happening as we're getting this expansive but very contradictory and

contractive news from Mercury. And we're really being like, okay, this is the shape of things. What can we do within the shape of things kind of moment? So it feels deep and cathartic. And because Venus is also about what we value and. and how we create union, there's something transformative there. Now, we might actually hear news about unions because Venus, I think, represents unions. Literally, it's the planet of union.

And unions are about being in union, unionizing. And so there might be something, because this is an Aquarius, so it's about the people and it's Pluto. So it's people power. There might be something really important about unions or about unionizing or something to do with the people that comes up in a much more like global kind of way or in a way that is much more about the collective experience. And also on Saturday, the sun makes a opposition to Jupiter. So again, it's like the contraction and the expansion because Mercury is moving backwards, but the sun is moving forwards. They do it opposite. But we're bookended by these. Or they're

doing them at the same time. They kind of swap out. So what's the expansion? What's the contraction? How can we work within the limits we've got? And then Neptune stations direct, which is not that big of a deal. Neptune pulls focus a little. So there's also that feeling of wanting to work within the ideal of the moment or whatever the ideal is for this moment. But Mars retrograde is going to dominate. It's going to dominate the headlines. And whatever conflict might be happening out in the world, we have to be the antidote for it. I don't mean we disassociate and pretend everything's okay and refuse to deal with conflict. Conflict is inevitable. Violence is not. So whatever violence, I think, I should say, we see out in the world, we have to be the opposite to that and say, this is the conflict and this is how we can work

through the conflict, work with the conflict, get to something good through the things that irritate and upset and, you know, make us move into action in some way. So a lot of that type of thing is probably going to get teased out. And it just makes, especially the first two weeks of December, a little bit more complicated. So try to do a little less complicated things that you don't actually have to do, like keep it simple, sweetheart, because Mercury is retrograde and now Mars is. And Mercury will be retrograde until the 15th of December. So let's simplify. Let's keep it organized. Y'all, thank you so much truly for leaving us reviews in the app store. It makes the world a difference to us and our team and our little app. I wanted to leave you with

This one, it's called gratitude for Chani and team. The Chani app has become part of my self-care routine. It has taught me to not only open myself up to meditation, but actually enjoy it, which has empowered me in ways I did not expect. I also just get so much joy out of listening to my own reading. Along with the other features on the app, I appreciate the intention and hard work Chani and the team put in to making this more than an app, but an experience of love and connection. At the end of next week, Mercury Station's direct. So come back and we'll talk about that.

On the same day, there's a full moon in Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury. So I think that'll be pretty interesting. In the meantime, I'm sending you all the love, all the blessings. go listen to your reading in your Chani app for your Rising Sign. It is going to help you. We are on a journey together now. It's you. It's me. It's all of us. Let's talk our way through this. Join me over on Instagram. I'll be in my stories on Instagram. I'll be on TikTok. I'll be posting about this. This is an 11-week transformative process that we are in together. You are not alone. I am not alone. We've got each other, so let's work this through. Bye for now.