Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of February 17th, 2025: Diving deep with Pisces season

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Episode 218In this podcast,New York Timesbest-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 February 17th, 2025, stirs up critical conversations and emotional downloads. As Pisces season begins, deep feelings about even deeper wounds may bubble to the surface. But with Mars wrapping up its latest lesson in conflict and security, we’re given newfound wisdom to tackle both. In all, the next seven days call for sturdy boundaries, lots of rest, and a little extra care.Let’s get into it.This episode covers:The Sun’s ingress into Pisces on Tuesday, February 18thMercury’s square to Jupiter on Thursday, February 20thMercury’s trine to Mars on Sunday, February 23rdThe end of Mars’ retrograde on Sunday, February 23rdThis episode was recorded on 2/3/2025.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on⁠iOS⁠ and⁠Android⁠.The music featured in the podcast was created by⁠Latashá⁠.

Hello and welcome. This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I'm your host, Channie Nicholas, your Astro Bestie, trying to get through one of the hardest years yet with you. We are in this together. All right, y'all, we are looking at the week of February 17th. I'm trying something new this year. Not sure how it's going to go, but I'm not recording these too far in the future. So I am actually recording this in February. It is February 3rd, so I'm not too far away from this. And also I know that every single day is like a century under these tyrannical skies. So I still feel like, you know, by the time I talk about things and you hear this,

it's all going to be outdated anyways because a whole new dumpster fire will have been. unveiled behind curtain number four that we seem to have chosen. So I don't know how much help it is to do these very, you know, close to the time that they're doing them, that we're living it out. In any rate, we are finishing up the last week of Mars retrograde. Mars is stationing direct this Sunday on February 23rd, Mars Stations Direct. It is the, biggest thing that's happening this week. It's the biggest thing that's happening this month. When we looked at each month of the year, this was the standout, standalone thing. Imagine. We haven't even lived it out yet. But a Mars stationing direct is massive. And look, can we just say

that Mars has been retrograding through cancer since January 6th? So January and this much of February, it has been retrograding through one of the most difficult signs that it can retrograde through. It's been retrograding through one of the most difficult signs it can be in. So cancer is the sign of Mars's fall. So it is struggling upstream. It is soggy. It is waterlogged. It is a bit of a deluge.

So when people talk about flooding the system, we could say, that is a Mars in cancer tactic if we're going to look at the worst iteration of Mars in cancer, or we could say the worst iteration of Mars retrograding through cancer, flooding the zone, overwhelming us with a flurry of inhumane, cruel, devastating executive orders, and the like, is something that feels very devious. It feels very much like a worst-case scenario of a bad Mars situation. And because Mars and cancer obviously is in the water, right? Cancer is a water sign. Mars is the fighter. Mars is conflict. Mars is anything severe and painful and harmful. And also, Mars is our courage and our ability to protect what needs.

to be protected. So all of the ways in which families have been attacked, all the ways in which we have been left to feel absolutely insecure. Cancer is a sign that is all about security, is about keeping things safe, is about nourishment, nurturing, and making sure that the most vulnerable life form is protected and gets to grow into what it needs to be. Cancer is all of that. And so when things go wrong in cancer, when things are not good and they're happening in the sign of cancer, then we could bet that things that are not good for the family are not good for home or not good for our sense of security and a reliability and a dependability,

Obviously, in order to feel safe, we need to know that we've got food, that we've got water, that we've got neighbors, that we've got housing, that we know where we're living and how we're living there. And all of that has been upended. All of that is being threatened right now because of this massive right-wing coup that we're essentially living under. Again, I don't know not sure exactly what's happening when you're listening to this, but that's what it is where I am, that's what it's looking like. And that's what it is that we're faced with trying to stop. We are being given the task of making sure that this thing, this threat to our security, to actual safety, to our well-being, to food, to water, to home, to community, to our ability,

to our ability to connect with one another, that we have to make sure that we protect everything that we can protect. Because at this point, not to be an alarmist, but at this point, it's hard to be an alarmist because the alarms are all sounding. At this point, everything that we can save is worth saving and is in need of us trying to fight for it in the ways that we can. So as Mars station direct this week. Hopefully, it aligns with the turning of a tide because it has felt like this onslaught of horror and this onslaught of chaos that is very much on point, this onslaught of attacks, right? We were dealing with a Mars retrograde, opening a year with a Mars retrograding, again, through one of the hardest signs it can retrograde through.

So we knew it wasn't going to be good. We knew it would feel congested. It's hard to parse through things emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, to even know where we are when so many things are attacking us at once, when it seems like every piece of news is the most demoralizing thing we could receive. And then something else comes. And then that is then the worst thing that we've heard that day. it's even hard to keep track of it all, which we all know is the point. So the flooding of the zone

and this Mars retrograding through cancer is coming to a shift. I'm not saying they're not going to still try to flood the zone. I'm not saying that any of their tactics are going to change. What I am saying is that something is changing. We are not going to be in a position of having to, I think, catch ourselves or understand where we are. I think by this point, and again, I'm only a couple weeks in the past, but I feel like at this point we're gathering something. Because as a planet stations direct, it looks like it's stopping before it starts to move forward. Now, it's going to be in cancer.

Mars will be in cancer until mid-April. So we still have all of March and half of April. to go through while it's still in cancer. So that still looks hard to me, to be honest. And Mars is really just going to hang out at the 17th degree of cancer for a very long time. If you have anything in the midpoint of cancer, like think 16, 17, 18, even 19 degrees of cancer, this is a very pivotal point for you. I would think that especially February has been pretty rough around the edges. I would think that if you have anything in cancer, if you're a first house, your rising sign is cancer, if you have any planets in cancer, this has been a tumultuous

time. But, you know, it's been a tumultuous time for us all. It's a tumultuous time for the world. The security, the safety, the interconnectedness of the entire world is being threatened, not just by the government here in the United States, where I'm sitting from, but for what it signals across the globe, right? So we're in a collective moment of needing to really listen to the sirens and really see the red flags and the warnings, and to really not take any of our rights or any semblance or any residue, if you will, of democracy for granted. of anything that we have access to for granted. I think it's really a time for us all to wake up to any and all access we have to making sure that we are fighting for our rights, the rights of our children, our families, our neighbors, our towns, our cities, our planet, life here on this earth. Not to overstate it, but this is where we are. It's an,

urgent, urgent, urgent way to begin the year. Okay. The rest of the week. We move into Pisces season on the 18th on Tuesday, February the 18th. Sun moves into Pisces. Happy birthday to our Pisces. We are going to have the first of two eclipses while we're in Pisces season. It's not until March 13th, but we know we're moving into then eclipse season. We're not quite there. But again, this will be eclipse territory. So Picey season comes in. Maybe we're experiencing a little bit more compassion. Maybe we're experiencing more of a deluge. Let's see. On the 20th of February, we've got Mercury making a square to Jupiter. That does seem like a possibility of good news or of a hopeful message or of something that has an expansive quality that's related to communications.

it's a good time to make some kind of announcement. The interesting thing is that on Sunday, on February 23rd, as Mars is stationing direct at 17 degrees of cancer, again, it's just going to hang out there. So we're not going anywhere fast, but we have finished the technical part of the Mars retrograde. But as it's doing that, Mercury makes a trine to Mars. So Mercury makes a trine to Mars as Mars is stationing direct. That means that the communicator, the translator, the microphone, the megaphone is like, hey, Mars, could I get an interview with you? How has this retrograde been for you? What are your plans? What's up next? What can we expect from you now that you're direct? Whose side are you going to be on? How can we work with this energy? So I think there's going to be a lot of conversations about how to fight back because, again, Mars is pivoting. Mars is moving forward. Not anytime fast or furious, but the retrograde is officially done. And then Mars is just

going to like just putter around that 17th degree of cancer for a long time. So if you have any planets there, take note these next five weeks will be very important. This is about doing some of the hardest work that we can do, but it is the most important work. Fascists don't just come out of thin air. We don't collectively, I mean, I didn't, you didn't, most likely, but we don't collectively agree to hire them for no reason. They come in because there's an opening for them to come in. So then we now have to do the hard work of stopping them in their tracks before they get too deep, before they get us into too deep of a mess, before we are all in too much trouble. So, May this Mars stationing direct be our rally cry.

May we gather ourselves, gather our forces, gather our energy, gather our love, gather our joy, gather our reasons for living, for celebrating, for loving, and for fighting, and may we move forward with those. They are relying on us being overwhelmed and decimated and depressed and absolutely energetically spent, which if I'm being honest with you, I absolutely am. And I am ready to get up and go. I am both things. I'm not going to pretend like this time hasn't been impossibly difficult, emotionally,

psychically, psychologically, all of the things, energetically, all of it. It's awful. I was also in LA during the fires. I mean, it's just been a really, really, really hard time. And we must keep going. We must find moments to rest, to refuel, to love each other, to party, to have fun, to remember our joy, to remember why we do this, to celebrate ourselves in all of our messiness and complexity and each other. And then we have to gather that energy and refocus it towards a collective liberation because that's the only thing left to do. The systems that we live within will not save us. No one person, no one leader, is kind of. coming to save us. We have to work as a family unit. We have to work as some sort of collective

body. And if Mars and cancer can do good things, because it can, we know what it feels like when it is just absolutely decimating us. But when Mars and cancer does great things, it fights for the most vulnerable. It rallies a sense of family. It is parental energy that is like, do not mess with my child. Do not even think of harming this young one. And that's how we have to feel about ourselves, our life, life on this planet, each other, our communities, our neighborhoods, our states, our towns, our cities, And yes, our country, I don't believe in borders, but we've got to find some way to feel collectively connected into our bigger family unit. And that's got to start small. It's got to start with ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, our street, and any way that we can get involved.

I know I'm saying the same thing over and over and over again, but I think we have to keep bringing this message home because we are what we've got. And like Mars and Cancer is the fallen Mars. It's not like the great soldier up on high that's come home victorious. It is the one that is down in the ditch. It is dirty. It is soggy. It is scarred. It is road weary, battle weary, all of it. but it's also the one that knows how to start a fire with, you know, two rocks or a little bit of flint and it knows how to be scrappy. It knows how to do the little things that end up winning the entire deal. And so we've got to stay with the closest of our connections and build out from there a little bit at a time. May this Mars stationing direct help us to emotionally,

energetically, psychologically, unclog, clear a pathway forward so that we will start moving forward. All right, y'all. Look, I want to just say that in terms of your chart and where this Mars stationing direct is happening, just take note of where cancer is. We've talked about this throughout the last couple of week aheads. I want to reiterate it, drive that message home because it is imperative that we know where it's happening in our chart because that is where we're going to feel it. That is where we're going to be like, ow, that hurt or whoa, that is such a pivotal thing to happen to me, for me, with me, and because of all that I've been struggling with. I don't need to say this, but we're supposed to struggle through something with a Mars retrograde, especially in cancer.

So the part of your chart that it's been happening in is where we want to focus and say, okay, yeah, that is, this is what this Mars retrograde has really been demanding that I dig into. Okay, look, y'all, because it's such a banner year astrologically as we've been talking about, because this year so much changes. This year is like new world order kind of year. This year, so many planets that take so long to change sign, change sign. Because of that, we wanted to write you an entire book. This is the yearbook for 2025.

That means that in this book, we have all the information that you need about all the major planetary events of 2025 for every single sign, every single planet. every single sign. So if you have Sun and Ares, you can be like, what is all this stuff happening in Ares? And then you've got Moon and Pisces. We talk about that. And then you've got a Libre Rising. You can go and read about all the different things. You've got Venus and Virgo. You want to know how it's impacted by the South Node moving through Virgo? It is. It's here. We write about it. So that's my favorite thing about this is that you can look up any single placement, every single placement in your chart and see how the astrology is impacting you based on the astrology. We ran out of them. We reprinted them. These little cuties are back in stock. So we're not going to do another

reprint of them. We wanted to make sure you had the info in your hand. It's not only good for this year. It's good for many years because these planets will be hanging out in these signs for a long time. So you'll probably be able to, you probably will reference this many, many times for many, years to come. And you can also read your besties, their placements and their stuff and let them know why they feel the way they do besides the fascism of it all. Okay. So that's back in stock. Wanted to let you know. And now I want to go to a question from the audience. This is a little ask me anything. Somebody asked, what are the major transits I should look for when doing something major in my life, like moving or starting a business? Love this question. Okay, there are a couple of

things that you want to look for. One, you want to look at the house that connects with the thing you're trying to do. So if you're moving, you want to look at your fourth house and see what sign is in your fourth house and see if there's any major transits that are happening. Like, often we don't have total control about when we're moving, but anytime I've moved, I've tracked that it goes along with a major signature that's happening either in my fourth house of home and moving and family and all of that or to the ruler of that house. So you want to know what planet rules the house that is connected to the topic you want to know about. So say you are Leo rising. By whole sign houses, Scorpio would be your fourth house of home and family.

So you could see if something major was happening in Scorpio to know like when or if you're going to move. But more often than not, that's probably not. going to be a thing that's going on. Like once a year you'll have a new moon there, once a year you'll have a full moon there. Of course, Venus and, you know, other quicker moving planets like the sun and Mercury will move through there, but that won't necessarily signify a move. But what you can do is then look to the planet that rules Scorpio if nothing major is happening in that house. And the planet that rules Scorpio in the traditional system is Mars. So you look at Mars. See, where is my Mars? It's going to tell me about house and home. And see,

if that planet is having any major transit that's happening to it. And you can go into the Chani app and look under transits and look and see if anything is happening to the ruler, the planet that rules the house that relates to the topic you want to know about. So in terms of like opening up a new business, you want to think about what you want out of the business. Do you want it to make money, I mean, most of us do? Do you want it to catapult you to fame? That's not a thing that most people should want, but maybe a lot of people want that. Do you want it to be something that's enduring and long lasting? Do you want it to be something, like what is it that you want for the business? If you want to think about money, you look to your second house. If you want to think about

your career and your status in the world and what you're known for, you want to think about 10th house. If you want to think about how to like run a business and the function of a business and how to work with the assets that you have, the tools that you have, how to do the like grunt work of the business, you'd look to the sixth house, like how to do the ins and outs of the business, how to do the schedule of the business, how to do the machinery of the business. I would look more to the sixth house. And so you'd look to see if there's anything major that's going into any of those houses and also the rulers of those houses. So say you're thinking about a career change this year. And let's say you just so happen to be a Virgo rising. Well, it just so happens that Uranus,

the planet of change and upheaval and moving things around is going to enter your 10th house of what you're known for, your reputation, also related to career and like what you do out in the world publicly. Whether you get paid for it or not, it doesn't matter. There's something about reputation that gets changed up that something is different for Virgo Rising's come about July of 2025. Again, you can look in the yearbook, the Channy 2025 yearbook for all of this. It'll tell you, if you look at Virgo Rising, it'll tell you about what that transit's going to do for you. But you'd look to see then and be like, oh, it makes sense that I'm like itching for something new. Or if the ruler of your 10th house, say is at zero degrees of Gemini or zero degrees of Virgo or zero degrees of

Saj or Pisces, then you know that around July, it's going to get some kind of major hard aspect from Uranus and it's going to make you want to change something up. So there's a lot of different ways of looking at this. And there's a lot of different ways of thinking about, you know, what is it? Is it a change that's coming? Is it that I need to get more serious about something. So Saturn's going to move into Aries come the end of May. And that's going to be very impactful for all cardinal signs or any place in your chart that is a cardinal house. So Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Those houses are going to be given a kind of like, okay, Tick-Tock, you're serious about this? Then get to work.

do the thing. I want a timetable. I want a schedule. I want you to commit kind of vibe. And then any part of your chart that contains cancer once we're done with this Mars retrograde is going to get this beautiful moment, year-long moment with Jupiter. So say you're a Gemini rising and your second house is cancer. Well, come June and for 12 months from 2025 to 2026, there's something really nice happening for you financially. Maybe it was really tough in the beginning of the year in the beginning of 2025, but it's going to shift. It's going to open up and there's going to be a great flow there.

So you want to think again about the ways in which the houses work. I did a video on the houses a couple of weeks ago. You can look it up on YouTube. But you want to think about the way the houses work and think about how these major planetary shifts, are going to be impacting those areas of your life. And so house by house by house, how are they going to be impacted? And then you also want to think about the rulers of those houses, the planets that are in charge of that area of your life. And because there's so many planets changing signs going

back and forth, like going into a new sign and then coming out and then going back in, any planet that you have at the very end of a sign or the very beginning of a sign is most likely going to be impacted this year and therefore what that planet stands for and the houses or the house that it rules is going to be also very impacted. So you want to think about like planets probably between 27, 28 degrees of the end of a sign and like zero one to couple first degrees of a sign. Any of those planets that you have end of a sign, beginning of a sign, are going to probably go through some sort of major shift. as Saturn is changing signs, Neptune is changing signs, Uranus is changing signs, Pluto has just changed signs, and then Jupiter's going to change signs. So any of those planets that are caught

in the midst of that, and those are a lot of planets to change signs, so those are a lot of signs. And then if you think of the fact that it's not just planets in those exact signs, but planets in any sign that's connected to those signs in any kind of major way, especially by opposition or square is going to be majorly impacted. So all of the cardinal signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, you're going to get a transit by both Neptune and Saturn, any of the mutable signs. So we think about Gemini, Virgo, Saj, and Pisces, you're going to get connected to that Uranus entering Gemini for that midsection of the, that midsection of the, you're going to be

the year. And then any planets that you've gotten fixed signs, so we've covered the modalities, any planets that you've gotten fixed signs, so we've got Taurus, Leo, Aquarius, and Scorpio at that like zero one, two, three degree of those fixed signs is getting a major moment with Pluto. So those planets are getting a major moment. And then the houses that they rule are getting a major moment. So again, in the Chani app, we'll talk about if you go into the transit section, it'll tell you what transits you're in. And then in the 2025 year book, you can read about generally what it means for the house and the topic that that house rules what that means for your life.

And then here on the week ahead, we'll go through it week by week in a general sense. All right, y'all, that's the read. That's the episode. Keep sending in the questions. Let me know if the way I'm answering them. is helpful. I can always do also like a chart example. We can also go through stuff on down to astro. Do you follow down to astro? We have a whole other podcast. It's me, Thea Anderson, and Eliza Robertson. We talk about the astrology and the world we live in and how the two match each other, how one reflects

the other, and how we're all going to get through this situation together. It's more than just me talking, which is really helpful, I think, for all of us. All right. I'm sending you a lot of love. May this pivot be one that is so fierce and so strong and so undeniable and such a rally cry for all of us. I will see you back here next week where we will talk about the upcoming Venus retrograde. I know, one ends and then the other comes in. It is just that kind of year, but Venus retrograde is that rally cry. Venus is stationing retrograde in Ares, and I do believe that it is going to be the thing that will ignite something pretty phenomenal. No pressure, but all the pressure. You know what I mean? All right. Lots of love. Bye for you.