Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of January 27th, 2025: Reclaiming our power with the New Moon in Aquarius

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Episode 215 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 January 27th, 2025 mixes major shifts with celestial honey. With a mold-breaking New Moon in Aquarius, input from the planets of growth and transformation, and a meetup between the planets of love and dreams, we’re invited to embrace community and connection. This period is intense — but it’s laced with life-giving sweetness. Let’s get into it. This episode covers: The start of Venus’ pre-retrograde shadow on Tuesday, January 28th Mercury’s conjunction with Pluto on Tuesday, January 28th The New Moon in Aquarius on Wednesday, January 29th The end of Uranus retrograde on Thursday, January 30th The Sun’s trine to Jupiter on Thursday, January 30th Venus’ conjunction with Neptune on Saturday, February 1st Venus’ conjunction with the North Node on Saturday, February 1st This episode was recorded on 11/22/2024. 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.

Hello and welcome. This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro Bestie Channy Nicholas. And in this episode, we are going to talk about the astrology for the week of January 27th. Now, this week holds within it the Lunar New Year, which is also, of course, a new moon. And I really love this new moon. I really love this new moon. I talked about it in the year.

ahead forecast in the Chiani app. And I also know that we are having this new moon in Aquarius sitting next to Pluto and trine Jupiter. So in a very interesting setup, I think it's a really good setup because of the trine to Jupiter. And I think it's really deep and cathartic and potent and powerful and transformative because it's sitting in the same sign as Pluto. And I also now know that somebody was just inaugurated president of the United States that I personally am not so happy about. I don't think democracy is happy about. I don't think will be good for most people. So I also know that we are in a really extreme kind of situation. And perhaps that is what Pluto and Aquarius speaks to. It is a situation that requires us to take extremely seriously the job of being a community member, the job of being part of the people, the job of trying to find a way to understand the power that we have as a collective.

And I do think that this new moon speaks to that. And because this new moon is sitting in a triumph with Jupiter, I just think it has some real goodness connected to it, goodness that we can use to facilitate, to encourage, and to hype up anything that we are doing collectively. Because that's what Jupiter and Gemini is good for. It's not good for our faith all the time, but it is good for hype, which might sound interesting to say. But like it knows how to get information out.

And this Newman is happening in Aquarius. And Aquarius is a sign that's really good at envisioning something outside of the box, going outside of the norms of what is usually held by the status quo. It is imperative for all of us to practice wild and radical imagination. It is imperative for all of us to connect to our ability to have a vision outside of this current reality. If we want to survive it, if we want to grow from it, if we want to connect to the abundance that is always there. Now, because Jupiter is connected to this new moon and this new moon is happening on Wednesday on the 29th, of January. So it's midweek. It's right in the middle of the week. We've got this new moon. It is a new

start. If you celebrate the lunar new year, happy new year, it is also a new year, which we could just take as a signal of a refresh. If you don't love what's happened so far in the Gregorian calendar of 2025, let's all hit the refresh button and enjoy this new moon and this new lunar year. So here we are. We have a Newman and Aquarius sitting with Pluto. It is galvanizing the group. It is galvanizing our ability to think deeply about the vision that we want to live into and how to do that. Because Jupiter is involved. It is about being generous and generative. It is about being expansive in our vision. Pluto wants us to be deep. Jupiter wants us to be expansive. So this is a new beginning that helps us do both. Be very deep in our rigorous critical thinking skills and also be really expansive in our envisioning, right, how to go kind of above and beyond what is normally thought of or expected.

on the day before the new moon on Tuesday, the 28th of January, we do have Mercury making a conjunction to Pluto. Now, these are messages from the deep. This is a conversation that can feel really transformative, really potent, really powerful, and also really harrowing. Pluto is the planet of the underworld. It is the planet of losing everything. stripping us down to get down to the bare essentials and the truth. And I do think that this conjunction really wants to know the truth. So I do think on a personal level, Tuesday is a good day to have some really deep and therapeutic conversations within the relationships that can handle that kind of depth. I also am looking at this day in terms of like, hmm, that might be

a moment where we're given some news publicly, collectively, that seems really harrowing to receive. So I'm not sure like the news will be great right before the new moon or great on Tuesday, but it will be really important. It speaks to power, to how power is used, to how power is being used right now and also gets us to think deeply and strategically and again broadly about what it is we want to do because eventually in a couple of days not this week but in a couple of days mercury is going to make that same trine to jupiter so mercury is talking about what's happening with the new moon if you will mercury translates whatever it talks to first is going to translate Pluto. So Pluto is very like dark lord kind of energy. So that's what's going to be translated on

Tuesday. Then eventually next week, it will translate Jupiter. And Jupiter is expansive and abundant and all about good news. So we're going to go through a process of what we're hearing, what we're listening to, how we're strategizing, how we're envisioning and recreating the future in our minds. And eventually get something in terms of like news or information that feels affirming and good about that. The other thing that happens on Tuesday that's really important that talks about something that's more long term that goes into the rest of the first quarter of the year and into even a little bit of the second quarter of the year, a good amount of the second quarter of the year, is that Venus right now is in Pisces. And on Tuesday, Venus enters its pre-retrograded

shadow. Now, Venus won't actually be retrograde until March 1st, but this is the thing. Venus retrogrades to the same area of the sky, almost exactly the same degrees every eight years. So eight years ago, at this time of the year, end of January, we had a Venus entering its pre-retrograd shadow. So what happened at the beginning of 2017 that is very similar to what happened now? And what was the reaction from Venusian people and figures? Now, Venus is, of course, representative of women and femmes and queer folks and artists and beauty makers of all kinds. So this is our call.

This is our rally cry. this is like, and maybe this is already happening. I'm recording this at the end of November, so I don't know what's happening at the end of January. But this is a moment where we're like, okay, that's what happened in 2017. And this is what we did in response or this is what happened in response. How can we go 70 times bigger and better and bolder and more informed and wiser and deeper and more creative? What are all the ways in which we are being galvanized right now as women and queer folks and gender not conforming folks and trans folks and anybody who feels marginalized by strict and supremacist gender binaries. How are we rallying ourselves and each other to meet this moment in bigger ways

than we even did in 2017? 2017 was a huge year for like women's issues and issues about gender and there was the Women's March, there was Times Up, Me Too, there was the Weinstein's, I don't want to call it a scandal, the underworld being exposed. There was all the ways in which we as a society, as individuals, many of us knew, but we as a society had to be like, oh, wow, abuse happens everywhere. Abuse of power happens everywhere. All of this is embedded into our system. and this is a revisiting or this is part two. This is the same Venus retrograde. Again, Venus doesn't retrograde until March 1st, but as of Tuesday, Venus has entered its pre-retrograde shadow.

What worked in 2017? What do we want to bring forward? What didn't work in 2017? What do we want to do differently? How are we answering the call of this moment? And I'll talk about this in a couple of different ways. But this is the thing about the call of the moment is that Venus is a planet that's associated with Inana, the goddess, the goddess of heaven and earth. And Anana, in her myths, one day,

hears a call. And the call is from her sister. Her sister is in the underworld. Her sister is a Reschigal, the queen of the underworld. You might think of her as a Pluto type of figure. Venus, Pluto kind of situation. Nevertheless, we can also think of Oreschigal as the other side of Inana. If Anana is the beautiful queen that everybody loves, the queen of heaven, the star Venus, the planet Venus, then Oreschkegel is the opposite of that. She is forgotten. She is neglected.

She is enraged. She is not beautiful. She is hidden. She is not celebrated. And Anana hears the call. from her sister. And so in every great myth, once the main character hears the call, they have to answer it. So Inana descends down into the underworld.

Before she goes, she tells her trusty sidekick, hey, listen, if I don't come back in three days, send help because something's happened down there. It's the underworld. Like we can't. Don't be a fool. Get me help. So Anana goes down through the seven. gates of the underworld. And at each gate, she has to relinquish an amulet some part of her

protective powers. And so by the time she gets down to meet her sister, Ereshkegael, she is absolutely vulnerable and unable to protect herself. And it is said that Ereschigal fixes the eye of death upon her, and that's it for Inana. And she remains in the unambal. And she remains in the underworld no longer alive. So three days go, three days pass, and her trusty sidekick is like, hey, God's, um, Anana's gone and she hasn't come back and it's been three days and she told me to let you know, I don't think this is good. So finally, one of Anana's fathers listens to her sidekick and says, look, I'm going to send down these two little creatures. They're called me. and they are going to be able to work this out and figure it out.

So what the me do is they slip through the seven gates. They're kind of like unseen and undetected and they slip through. And they find a Rushka go, the goddess of the underworld, sitting with her sister's body, moaning and wailing and crying and forlorn. And she's saying, oh, oh, my insides. oh, oh, my outsides and she's rocking back and forth and she's in agony. And these two me, the two little helpers, listen to her. They witness her and they reflect her.

They say, oh, oh, you're insides. Oh, oh, you're outsides. And this goes back and forth. It's like a call and response that happens again and again and again until it kind of wakes up Arashka gal and she says, who are you? And what can I give you? It's like she's been aroused in some way and her spell of her own pain is broken because somebody has mirrored her because she has been witnessed and mirrored. So they say, well, we'd like anana. And so Ereschigal has to sprinkle the food of life and water onto Inana and Anana is reborn.

And so if we think of the whole thing being the same being, Anana is Ereschigal, Ereschigal is Anana. The helpers are also a part of the central conscious awareness or the central being, right? If all of it, if we're looking at this in like a dreamscape kind of scenario and we're looking at all the figures and the myth as one being, then the part of us that calls us down needs witnessing. And then there has to be another part of us that witnesses. I see my own pain. I see my own fear. I see my own unwillingness to meet this moment.

I see my own trepidation. I see all of the sides of myself. And in that witnessing, we can be released from the spell of our own anguish. That is the myth, or that is the mythic kind of architecture that we're moving into as of Tuesday. Again, Venus isn't retrograde yet and that it's more fitting in terms of like when Venus is actually retrograde, it'll be retrograde throughout March and into April. But it's like in the ethers. So I want us to think about what is the call?

What are we being called to do? Who is calling us? what aspect of self and society and the collective is calling us. And how can we respond to the call? I know everyone right now is exhausted. People that have been doing frontline work, people that have been fighting for justice, for their communities and for all communities,

and maybe even for themselves, are tired. I get it. I do. And this is where we're at. So to the degree that is suitable for you, to the degree that you have time, energy, all the things, to your own degree, thinking about what it is you're being called to understand and recognize in yourself that you need to witness and mirror and just say, like, I got you, it's good, what you're being called to witness and recognize for the collective in the

world in a way that you can. What is that? And how do we do that? And just also taking note of this moment and what it is parsing out for us in terms of, again, all of the issues that impact us, especially in regards to gender, women's issues, trans rights, reproductive rights, the rights of all individuals to live in accordance with their own truth of who they are, their gender expression, and their right to bodily autonomy, our right to bodily autonomy. That's my rant. That's what's happening right before the new moon. And again, Venus will be in this pre-retrograd shadow until March 1st, retrograde through March,

through part of April. and then in the post-retrograde shadow into April and into May. So it's a good chunk of the year. So it says that 2025, at least the first half of it, is marked with these issues. We are being called to something and we're being asked to answer the call. And Venus, you know, above all else is about justice. It is the planet that rules Libra. And so as the ruler of Libra, Venus is like, okay, what is justice?

well, what is right? What is equality? What is balance? What is in balance? What is out of balance? And then on Thursday, Uranus is going to station direct. It's at the end of Taurus. It's finishing up.

It travels through Taurus. It will enter Gemini in July. So we've got it at a time. But it is stationing direct. It's pulling focus. It's saying, hey, in Taurus, these are our resources. How do we want to work with them differently? what's the thing about money, what's going on with the stock markets, what's going on financially.

It'll pull focus in those ways. And also on Thursday, the sun makes a trine to Jupiter, which is the aspect that I was so excited about that is incorporated into the new moon on Wednesday. So Wednesday and Thursday do feel like there's some hope, there's some abundance, there's a lift of spirits, there's, again, a very real. call to be abundant in our thinking, to be expansive in the ways in which we're envisioning a new way of being. Last week, we had the Pluto-Kazimi, the Pluto-Sun conjunction.

It was the beginning of something absolutely brand new that I am hoping is about our absolute commitment to being a powerful collective force for change, for good, for real. And then on Saturday, February 1st, happy Black History Month, Venus, planet of beauty and love and connection and relationship and women and femmes and queer folks and all of the gorgeous, beautiful, fantastic, fabulous people and things that you love, Venus, makes a conjunction with both the North Node and Neptune. So all things that are Venus are heightened. We have right now a massive desire for beauty,

for aesthetic pleasure, for pleasure in general, for love and for connection. And I would say also for being compassionate, I'm doubting myself while I'm saying that again, because of the world we live in and because of what's just happened and because it feels like this is probably a really divisive moment. But the astrology says otherwise or the astrology is saying because of all the divisiveness, this is a moment where everyone is going to want to take the escape route. You know what I mean? Like everyone is going to want to be like, okay, let's go

and get out of here. Let's not deal with reality. There is a deep desire. to escape, to fantasize, to go into something that is not confined by the reality of the situation, by time, by tough things, by hard edges, by conflicts. Venus is exalted in Pisces. So everything that it does here has like a special protective quality to it and just also like a special touch to it. And Venus conjunct Neptune is extra romantic and extra ideal about love and beauty and relationships. And it's not good with boundaries. It's not good with getting dates and times and all of that, right?

But it's so good at exploring and expanding our ability to connect to one another through the simple act of having compassion. and having a desire to experience some kind of oneness. Now, I say that with trepidation because that can get messy and it's not good to overlook the specificities of things. We do have the South Node in Virgo now, which is going to downgrade being specific. So, you know, I take this all with a grain of salt, but I also just feel like the desire for escapism and beauty is going to be at an all-time high. I say that also because the North Node increases our appetite for something.

So we're going to have just this big desire to get together, to unify, to beautify, to beautify, to relate, maybe to escape, but also to work towards something that is ideal. What is the ideal relationship? What is the ideal artistic collaboration? What is the ideal aesthetic thing? So it'll be interesting to see how that pops up for us. On a practical level, this is a really good time to go take in art and music and everything that helps you to, again, tap into your imagination. Aquarius is about the vision and being really clear and really confident about the vision. Pisces isn't necessarily clear or confident.

It's not not confident, but confidence is just not its main thing. Pisces is able to be open. It is able to see us as a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little speck in this infinite universe. And so it's able to be like kind of untethered from the minutia of things. It doesn't need to focus there or it doesn't focus there. It just doesn't. So it helps us to get out of that and to shake it all off and to like just get lost in the beauty of a song or in the beauty of a painting or a piece of art or a play or a movie

or the ocean or the sea or the lake or the park or the, lover that is in front of you. Like it helps us to get lost in it. And that is a really important thing because it's in that losing the ego where we find ourselves. And because Venus is exalted in Pisces, up on high in Pisces, it does this really, really well, exceptionally well. All right, Jell, I hope this was helpful. I'm sending you so much love, so many, many blessings. Look, I've got a little Ask Me Anything segment that's coming up next if you want to hang around and learn some extra astrology. If not, come back here next week and we'll talk about Venus moving from its superior position in Pisces, exalted position in Pisces, to its exile in Ares, to its

bad girl aesthetic kind of vibe. All right. I'll see you back here next week. But before we go, go, I want to answer a question from you, the audience. This week's question is, what are aspects and why should I care about them? So what are the aspects between planets? What are the aspects that can happen? So I'm a traditional astrologer. I go by the traditional aspects. And these are them. There's a conjunction. That's when two planets are together at basically the same point of the zodiac, the same point of space. There is a sex style. and that's when two planets are about 60 degrees away from each other. And that is an exciting relationship. Then there's the square, which is a 90 degree angle, which is a point of friction. Then there's the opposition, which is 180 degrees. I'm here. You are there.

It's a tug of war. It's an opposition. And then there's the trine, which is 120 degrees. I should have done that one first before the opposition, but then there's a trine. 120 degrees, it is a flowing, helpful aspect. So the challenging aspects are the square, the 90 degree angle, and the opposition because the square is what we call a hard aspect, and it is a point of friction. Now, friction is good. We need friction. We need friction to experience pleasure. We need friction to move into action. We need friction to do things. But it can be a little

bit of a thorn in our side. An opposition is also very important. I don't know when I'm being an asshole until somebody tells me, usually. I mean, if it's a good day, I know when I am. But do you know what I mean? Like, we need each other. We need to be in relationship to understand who we are and to learn about each other. And that's the nature of an opposition. It is the nature of a relationship. But again, it can be very adversarial. Now, the thing about aspects, are there all relationships between the planets. So when we say, I've got this conjunct that or this square that, it's talking about this planet is in this type of relationship with this planet. And some planets are just better together than others. So if you have like a square from Venus or Jupiter,

yes, it can cause problems, but it's not going to cause like problems. If you have a square or an opposition from Saturn to say any other planet, but especially like your sun, your moon, Mars or Saturn, like if you have Mars Square Saturn or Mars opposing Saturn or Mars conjunct Saturn, those are planets that are going to cause you grief. And so when they're together, they make you work really hard. That's also not a bad thing. But we tend to want things that are easy and pleasurable and delightful. And, you know, who can blame us. It's just how we're made up. It's just the setup here on Earth. So when you're thinking about conjunctions two planets together, Venus and any planet together is going to be lovely. I mean, it might be intense for Venus,

that Venus is going to lend sweetness to whatever planet it touches. Jupiter is going to lend expansion and abundance and wisdom to whatever planet it touches. Mars is going to lend heat and a little aggravation, but also some courage and some action. Saturn is going to lend discipline and control and structure, but also can add rigidity and control and coldness to whatever it touches. The sun and the moon are a little bit more neutral in a way, like things can impact the sun and moon in a way that they don't necessarily impact other planets, except for if planets are close to the sun, if they're conjunct the sun, and they're not like exactly conjunct the sun, they'll be what we say is burned up by the sun's rays.

So if things are too close to the sun but not exactly in the same place as the sun, we could say that they might be quote unquote a little damaged by the sun's rays, just like when you're out in the hot sun for too long and you feel a little loopy after. That's what planets close to the sun but not close enough and not far enough away from the sun are. I know this is complicated. Basically aspects are relationships and everything in your chart is in relationship to everything else. Even if there's no relationship, that's still a relationship. That's still a relationship. Say I have a cousin. I never see them and I never talk to them. They're in my family, but I don't have a relationship to them, but that's information. So if they're off doing something

that's impacting me, I'm not going to know about it. And I'm not going to be able to interrupt it or I'm not going to be able to even say thank you for it because we're not in relationship. So the planets that are in relationship in your chart, the planets that are in aspect to each other, conjunction, textile, square, trine, or opposition, at least they're in some kind of conversation. The conversation might not always be lovely, but it is a conversation and you can work with them. The planets that can't see each other, they can't witness each other, they're a little harder to integrate because they just, they don't know, right? You don't witness someone, you don't hear them, you don't see them, you don't ever bump into them. They're never at

the family reunion. What do you know from them? You don't. You hear about it, like you know they're around, but it's good when planets can see each other in a way. So, aspects or relationships between two planetary bodies or between the points in your chart and other planets or the points in each other. So midheaven, descendant, ascending, icy, planets conjunct, or in a situation with those points are also very important. And then the nodes, Chiron, Lilith, you can start to add in a lot stuff. But aspects themselves are about the relationship. So say like we're both like cool kids. We're like on different sides of like the cool kids spectrum, but we're both cool kids. But we have something in common. We can be each other's allies. So say you have Mars,

trine Saturn. They're both like the cool kid or like the bad kids in school. But if they're in a trying or a sex style relationship, they're going to help each other out. They might be a little standoffish with each other, but they're going to assist one another on their job. Each planet has a certain job. But if Mars is, say, square my sun, then I'm going to feel spurred into action a lot because Mars is a planet again of heat and often of action and agitation and a square. is an agitating or friction-based relationship. And my son is my sense of self. And so if Mars is in my chart square my son, I'm going to feel like I need to take action all

the time. And part of my work will be about discerning when that is needed and when it's not. And again, it can be a pain in the ass for me sometimes, but it's not a bad thing, right? Being able to move into action is a really good thing when needed. Not being able to just chill is not great if the point of the moment is to just rest and chill or to not be in a place of like perpetual conflict, right? So like if Mars isn't a challenging conjunction square opposition to another planet, then I might be in a sense of like, oh, I'm, I need to start something or there needs to be

always some kind of action happening. And sometimes that can roam into like too much drama happening or too much friction or too much fighting or too much of something, right? It's not bad. Those things in context aren't bad or those things in moderation aren't bad. Nothing is. Unless it's like harm. So this is what you should do. You should go to the Chani app, pull up your chart, and look at one planet. Look at your sun to start out. And look and see what aspects, it'll say gifts and challenges, what aspects your son is making to other planets or what aspects are other planets making to your son. And take note, under the gift section, it'll most likely be sex styles and trines, because those are the easy relationships. Sex styles are.

energizing, they're exciting, they're stimulating, and trines are flowing, useful help. A conjunction from Venus or Jupiter to your sun will also be a gift to your sun, because those are really helpful planets. Then, if you look at their challenges, it will be the more, like, friction or oppositional situations or squares or oppositions from, like, more neutral planets, or conjunctions from planets that are difficult. So even like a conjunction between the sun and, say, Pluto is one that would be under challenges, I think. I think we put it under challenges because it is a challenging job for the sun, the identity,

the part of the chart, the part of you that's about identity, to have to incorporate, because that's what a conjunction is. It's two things working together. incorporate such a big, huge energy like Pluto. Pluto's deep and transformative and really powerful and potent. And it's not bad to have your sun-conjunct Pluto, but it's deep. And it's hefty. Or sun-conjunct Uranus, the outer planets. Uranus is a planet of change and innovation, and people might find you really thrilling and interesting and wild and exciting if you have sun-conjunct Uranus. And it might be a lot. Like it's a lot of energy.

energy running through you. Or Sun can drink Neptune. He can make you like a dreamy, amazing artist who's really good at shape shifting and changing and like having a lot of different identities, same with Sun and Pluto in a different way. Sun Neptune is really good at projecting an image of self. It's really good for fame. If that's something that you want. And it can be really hard because you might feel like you've lost your identity all the time or you keep losing a sense of self or like, who am I really? And I get down to it. What is it? What is it? the illusion that I've built of self and what is the real me. So anyways, look under gifts and challenges in the Chiani app. Look to see, just take one planet at a time. What aspect, what relationships

is that one planet in with other planets? And how do you see it showing up in your life? And the things that might feel like challenges at first end up being real gifts. Not that they're not also sometimes still a pain in the ass, but quite often when we age and we mature, we'd change our relationship to the things that have been thorns in our sides. And so our relationship to our entire chart also changes. We learn how to work with it differently. So just know that your relationship with all of the things that you discover about yourself astrologically will, God willing, change over time.

All right, y'all. Hope that wasn't too long. And I hope there was something you could get from it that felt clear. And, yeah, aspects are relationships. to and from planets. This planet, this planet, if they can witness each other, are they giving each other side eye? Are they giving each other like oppositional glare?

Are they smiling at each other? Are they like cheerleading each other on? That's what we want to know. Like who's on this planet's team? Sexiles and Trians are going to be on my team. Oppositions and squares, they're on my team, but they're like tough love teachers. Conjunctions are great.

and can be challenging because we have to merge those two planets and their significations together. Go read about yours and the channing up. Let me know what made sense, what was helpful, and the question you might still have about it. Okay. See you next time. Bye.