Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of March 9th, 2026: Opportunity and overheating with Venus and Mars

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Episode 273In 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 March 9th, 2026, sets the stage for transformation and revelation. Venus sextiles Pluto, planting seeds of connection that will continue to grow and bloom as the year unfolds. Jupiter stations direct in Cancer, giving our opportunities for abundance a supportive boost. And Mars meets up with Mercury retrograde and the North Node in Pisces, surfacing the details, plotlines, and pain points that we need to pay closer attention to. Now is the time to double-check the data and tune in to your intuition to be sure you don’t miss anything important.This episode covers:Venus’ sextile to Pluto on Monday, March 9thThe end of Jupiter retrograde on Tuesday, March 10thMars’ conjunction with the North Node on Friday, March 13thMercury Rx’s conjunction with Mars on Sunday, March 15thThis episode was recorded on 03/03/2025.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.Feeling overwhelmed by Mercury retrograde and the rest of this month’s astro mess? We’ve got just the thing: 30 days of free CHANI premium. To unlock all the tools and resources you need to face this month’s turbulent astro-weather, all you have to do is enter SUPPORT30 in the “redeem offer code” section of the app to upgrade. (Valid for new and expired users. Terms and conditions apply.)Want to know what Chani’s reading beyond the astro? Join her book club, The Next Chapter, to explore her favorite titles and build community around books that reckon with and reimagine the world we’re living in.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

You know what I love about the conversations that we're all having online, that I see so many people having online that I'm having online, is that we're talking about matriky in this moment on mass. I'm seeing it everywhere. And it is the obvious antithesis to the extinction burst of white supremacist, settler, colonialist, capital. patriarchy that we are living with. It is pretty much just like a one-to-one. Like, this is happening, so let's go here. What I love so much that is getting clarified in the imaginations, I hope, of some people, is that matriarchy is not about making women superior. It's actually about no one being superior. It's actually about centering children, centering the vulnerable, centering disabled folks, centering elderly folks, centering the earth, centering the needs of the whole,

of the collective. And that's really interesting to me that we're having that at this moment because Jupiter right now is in cancer. And Jupiter is the planet that is called the greater benefic. Jupiter is a planet that brings some kind of abundance. And in cancer, it's said to be exalted. So it's up in a position that is like on high. I've talked a lot on this podcast about the fact that a lot of ancient astrologers connected Jupiter and cancer to the power of the local or to the abundance of the local

or to the impact that we can have locally because cancer is a sign that's ruled by the moon. and the moon is our local planet. And so it's always about what we can do locally. And obviously, the moon, cancer, is related to what we might say is matriarchy. It is related, again, to the whole. It is related to nurturing. It is the mother, the parent, that kind of parental energy that says, what are the needs of the most vulnerable among us?

How can I protect them? and that kind of outlook on life is a protection in and of itself. Before we get into the Astor of this week, I just wanted you to remember that you have an absolutely free all access pass for 30 days to the Chani app. All you need to do is use the code support 30 because that is exactly what we wanted to do. We want you to feel supported through these wild times. psychologically and otherwise. Hang out with us. Get some meditations, get some sleep stories, get some monthly and weekly readings, get it all here, enjoy, pass it on to your friends or

anyone you think might have some need for this kind of support right now. Hello and welcome. This is the Astrology of the Week Ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro Bestie Channie Nicholas. In this episode, we are talking about the astrology of March ninth and the week they're in. I've got to be real with y'all. If you're looking at me and you're like, Channie, are you okay? I'm not really. I mean, I am totally okay, but I did not sleep last night. I am coincidentally. I don't know if I believe in coincidences, the coinciding of events I believe in. I am recording this on March 3rd, which is the date of the eclipse in Virgo. Why am I recording this on March 3rd? Well, because in pure mercury retrograde fashion, my trip got canceled last week.

All of my plans became mush. I was unable to record this ahead of time, which I usually do. So unlike normal, I'm actually caught up to some degree. God knows what's going to happen over the course of the next couple days. But I'm caught up to some degree on world defense, unfortunately. And unfortunately, they are, world events, are, and malignant narcissistic leaders, are moving according to what the astrology has looked like. So if you go back and you listen to your monthly reading on the Chani app, say, or if you listen to the forecast that I gave for the year ahead for 2026, say, you'll hear me in a lot of instances say that February is like a standout month, was a standout month, February into March, and there's pockets later in March, later in April, and then we go on and on.

July 4th, huge major signature that's definitely connected to the events of late February. Now that we can see clearer, I'm definitely circling July 4th on my calendar. So the events that I was talking about, the astrology that I was talking about, you can go back and hear me say that things are overheated, that there's this signature of, yes, a new beginning, but it's also happening in such disruptive arenas or the ways in which everything lands is about a major disruption to the order of the world. it is a deluge upon the systems that we come to rely upon and the structures of doing things. I said February 20th, the Saturn Neptune conjunction was like, okay, this is how we usually do things. These are the rules. This is how we operate. No longer.

Something about the traditional way of doing something is wiped out. So what happened over the course of the last bit of February, of course, was that the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, took out the Supreme Leader. And it just so happens that 36 years ago, the last time Saturn and Neptune made a conjunction was the last time the Supreme Leader of Iran died. So there's a really eerie correlation there. And then because all of this was happening very much in the heart of Eclipse season, it's important to note, or it's eerie to note, it's weird to note that Trump, Netanyahu, and Khomeini are all born on the day of an eclipse, different eclipses, but all people that are eclipse babies, we say. I mean, again, they're malignant narcissists

who are a threat to all life on this planet, but they were also born on an eclipse. And you could say that people born on an eclipse have a energy that is not inherently bad, but it is inherently disruptive. And it is inherently something that can eclipse or obliterate whatever else is going on around them. You'll notice when you start to study astrology that a lot of celebrities, a lot of people that come into fame or into notoriety, have either like the North Nodeode in the house or in a house that's really prominent, maybe the 10th house, or they're born in or around an eclipse. They have something connected to one of the eclipse points, one of the notes, quite often,

not always, but I see it a lot. So there's a lot more events that we could talk about connected to the astrology of what just happened, the United States' moon, because there's a chart for every country, every event, every moment of life. And the moon in the United States's astrology chart is in late Aquarius. Well, where was the eclipse in Aquarius on February 17th? Basically within a degree of the moon in the United States's birth chart. So what does that mean? Well, it impacts the people, it impacts a feeling of security, it impacts the well-being of a country. And it just, marks a moment where there's like a big event that's going to impact that country. I talked a lot

about that eclipse being square to Uranus, which means Uranus, the planet of instability and change, is square the United States' moon. So there's a lot of disruption and chaos going on for the country in terms of the astrological chart of it. And then we just so happen to have a leader that yes, is born during an eclipse, but he's also born with a sun Uranus conjunction during an eclipse. And that sun Uranus conjunction is in Gemini. And Uranus is about to go back into Gemini because he's old AF because it takes Uranus 84 years to go around and come back to the place it was when we were born. Not the age of a person who should be leading the country,

especially when they're showing signs of severe dementia and weird ratchew. and the like. Anywho, the moon of the United States' chart is being squared by Uranus, and then what happened over the course of the last couple days of February, when we attacked and assassinated Iran's leader, was the fact that Mars was also on the moon in the United States' chart, and Uranus was squaring it. And so it was like this boiling point. eclipse, a Uranus Square, and a conjunction from Mars on the moon of a country, that's a big deal. It's a big effing deal that's going to impact again the people, but also the sense of security and the sense of like connectedness between us. That's us. Then there's the chart of Iran. There's a

chart of all the countries in the world, all the players in this situation. There's a lot to unpack there. I'm not going to do it all on this podcast. We did write a piece that's up on the blog, cheney.com, about this astrology. Many astrologers did phenomenal work on this moment and this astrology and what it would mean for the world. Astrologers like Chris Brennan, Austin Coppick, Nick Deggan Best, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, like folks on threads, like, there's just so many really intelligent people adding to the conversation. not fear mongering, but just looking at the astrology head on and saying, at least for me, when I look at it, I'm like, oh, that's really like hard astrology, which wouldn't be disastrous

if we lived inside of a system that centered care as its central tenant, then bad astrology, quote unquote, horrible astrology, rough astrology will be like, okay, we'll get third through it together, though, we'll share our resources. Everyone will be as okay as is possible because we have each other. We are a safety net. But because we live in these cultures of violence and extraction and dominance and supremacy and exploitation, we're not okay, not nearly, not in the least bit at all. And so when you see bad astrology happening, again, when we have sociopaths in charge of the most powerful militaries in the world, then you're like, oh, no, what are they going to do?

And eclipse seasons always impact a leader somewhere. And there's a big, big, big one coming up in August. So that will also be connected to these events that we've just lived through in 1979. Chris Brennan pointed out, there was an eclipse in Virgo, and that was the creation of this government in Iran. So again, these eclipses in Virgo end up being connected to a different set of eclipses in Virgo via the countries that come into the foreground in terms of the crises that we're living through. And we know that we're living through polycrisies. There's not one. There's so many. There's too many to choose from. There's the ongoing environmental crisis. There is

the genocides that are happening in Gaza, in Congo, in Sudan. There is Venezuela. We stole their leader. There is Cuba. There is so much going on right now. And this is the point when these kinds of people are in charge in the systems that we have in place, in the systems that go unchecked. in the Epstein classes system where perpetrators of mass harm go without consequence, face no consequence, have yet to face trials, then this is where we end up. And we know this. I'm preaching to the choir. I know you know this. But all that to say, when we have this kind of harrowing astrology, when we're looking at marks in the sky and you're like, oh gosh, we know there's only.

We know there's only one solution. And it's never about one leader. It's not about taking out one leader. It's not about voting one person out. It is about a structural overhaul. Nothing will work in this system. It will all lead us back here. It will always make room.

It'll always create a vacuum for the worst to come in and take advantage of a system. all. And so we have to change the systems that we are working with in so that it holds horrific behavior to account and says absolutely not. So again, I find the conversation about matriarchy. I'm going to say that to me that means black feminist queer thought. That means indigenous leadership. That means land back. That means reparations. That means a lot of things. It's definitely not centering like white women and our needs and like fantasies about what power could look like under our leadership. It is about the redistribution of power. And again, centering children,

centering the elderly, centering the sick, centering the needs of disabled folks, centering the folks that are marginalized in these systems that we live within now. All right. I circle us back to Jupiter and Cancer. This week it is stationing direct in cancer, which is a mark of, again, care. It is a mark of local power. It is a signal from the skies to remember that, yes, we have to think globally, but act severely locally. What can you do this week to take care of your neighbors? What can you do this week

to go outside your front door and foster a network and an ecosystem of care right around you, right at your fingertips? Because we know that that just ripples out. And we need a lot of different tools in our tool bag, in our tool belt to fight this situation that we're in and to recreate the world and the ways in which we want to see it. But that's the only choice we've got. It's that or totally check out. And I do not believe that that is the sacred work that we have come here for.

I do believe it is a great honor to serve this moment and to be alive right now. It's harrowing. It's hard. It's overwhelming. But it is an honor to be able to show show up with whatever it is we've got and to move boldly into each day with every fiber of our being dedicated to caring for life on this planet. Okay, back to the astrology. On Monday, we have Venus

sex styling Pluto. Great, good. It's not like a huge mark, but it is a really nice boost to our relationship. It is a moment of like deep, deep, deep friendship and the past. And the power and the regenerative force of connection and friendship. On Tuesday, we have the Jupiter stationing direct in cancer. I do want you to think about where cancer is in your chart and how much you've grown over the past six months. Because Jupiter has been here for, it's been here since June of 2025. So it's like nine months. And it takes a couple months to kind of get going, I think. Sometimes it's right away. So you can think about since June, what have you been growing in this area of your life. But this is a time where you really want to be like,

okay, this is the blessings that Jupiter and Cancer have brought me. Maybe it's not the things that I was thinking it was going to bring me. Maybe I was being too narrow in my scope. Maybe I was looking at gift horse in the mouth. Maybe I should be grateful for the things I've been able to cultivate and for what has been bestowed upon me since last June in this area of my life. So go listen to your reading in the Chani app this week because I talk a lot about that. And it's really good to say thank you and to be in gratitude for the growth that we have been able to achieve and that we've been able to move into and that we have been able to expand ourselves and our awareness into. And Jupiter's only going to be here until June and then we're going to lose

the protection of Jupiter and cancer. I hate to say it, but it's true. So I really want us to focus on what we can do again to center care for all, to center care as our currency, as the way we move in the world. How do we show care? And that does not mean being a dormant. It does not ever mean that we abandon ourselves. It doesn't mean that we bend over backwards for everybody and never say what we need. That is not how we center care. You have to be a part of the equation. And then I am remiss to say that between the 13th and the 15th, we have another moment that is going to center Mars. Mars on the 13th of March is going to make a conjunction with the North Node in Pisces. So it's not like a super aggressive sign, but still, right now I don't want any more Mars content.

Thank you very much. But here we go. And then on the 15th, Mercury is going to back up into Mars and the North Node. And so there's going to be some very important conversations that we have that, yes, are overly heated, are very confusing, and that are misdirecting. So when I say conversations, it's more like we are going to receive some news that is not quite forthright, that is quite possibly a total outright lie. and that is going to be hostile or about something that is aggressive or hostile in nature. Mars and Mercury coming together is about the articulation of the fight.

So it's fighting words. And then when you put the north node, the place where eclipses happens in the mix, that just gets amplified. All of that gets raised. Now it's in Pisces. Again, the sign Mercury does the worst in. retrograde, awful, like just not clear. Facts, data, the plan, understanding the direction, all unclear. It's not there.

It just feels like aggressive, but also hard to pinpoint, hard to get to, hard to figure out. And because this is all happening near the North Node, it's very consequential. And it speaks to that kind of turbulence that we have been experienced. experiencing. Again, as I've been saying over the past couple of weeks, the astrology is really tough right now. This is not the toughest. This week is not. I just on the heels of these dictators starting wars, having Mars near the North Node with Mercury retrograde backing up into it, doesn't look good to me. And I want to say that as I've been saying for the past couple of weeks, the way we get through is centering our relationships and centering the strength of our

connections and how we build with each other. You don't have to like me. No, a lot of people don't. That's fine. I don't like a lot of people. We don't even have to agree on everything. But we do have to understand the reality we're living within and that we are going to need each other, that we already do. It's way past time. We've already always needed each other. that no one is coming to save us. We are the only thing we have, but we are the exact thing that we need. We are all we've ever needed.

We've never needed a leader to come save us. No leader was ever going to come and make it all better. And the removal of one leader or 20 leaders is also not going to save us. The reconstruction of our systems are the point of regeneration that we need to move towards. I think you are free to disagree with me. But that's what I think a lot of this astrology is pointing to.

But you don't need astrology to tell you this. We know this. It's plain as day when the systems we live within allow, quote unquote, powerful people to get away with the most egregious, horrific, evil actions all the time. And then they do it again and again and again and again. So we have to enter into this point in time and say no more. This is not what we're doing. We cannot vote our way out of this. We cannot bomb our way out of this. We cannot war our way out of this. We have to change the ways in which we are doing each and every interaction. Take your money out of the big banks,

if and when you can boycott all of these businesses that are connected to this ever-consuming war machine that we live within. Do all the things that you can think of to divest your energy, your time, your money, and your talent from these people and these places and these systems. And let us begin something new. That is the invitation of the Saturn Neptune conjunction. That is the invitation of this game-changing astrology. It's time for something new. It's also time for a question from the audience.

So let's have it. Hi, Chani. Thank you for everything that you do, especially in this time right now with the Support 30 code. I am just wondering what it means when your chart ruler is in retrograde because I'm looking back at the time when I broke up with a significant other. And a lot of major planets were retrograding like Saturn, Neptune, Mercury, my chart ruler Jupiter and Chiron as well. So I want to know what this means.

Great question. So in terms of chart rulers, I go by, traditional chart rulers only. Traditional rulers of signs only. So I would only see up until Saturn as a chart ruler. I would not see Neptune as a ruler of your chart. I would not see Pluto as a ruler of your chart and I would not see Uranus as a ruler of your ascendant. And again, you can have a differing opinion from me. I love it. I am a rules girly. Like I'm a rules queen. I love a system. I love a structure. I love things to be like very, very tightly connected and beautifully woven together. And that's why I love traditional astrology. So bearing that in mind, if you have Jupiter as the ruler of your ascendant, aka if you're Pisces rising or Sag rising and Jupiter is retrograde in

your chart. Generally, I see this as something about the direction of your life moving in a different way. Like, you might have to move in a different way. You might have to do something two steps backwards, three steps forward, three steps forward, two steps backwards. There might be this kind of pivoting that you do. Things might take, again, an odd turn of events in order to come true. It's not a good or bad thing, although the ancients might disagree with me. You might read some things from ancient astrologers that say otherwise, because they were really harsh dudes, you know, like they don't really care about your feelings. But in general, there's a sense or a quality of moving differently because the planet's appearing to move retrograde or getting to something slowly.

I have an example of this of a person in my life that's still quite young. So we'll see how their life progresses and how the events of their life progress. But I see them as very pensive and they are not really prone to acting before they think or before they suss out a situation. they're very, very, very mindful of their environment and they like to observe before they act or before they understand where they are in any way, shape, or form. So there is that sense of like, I always think about their chart. When I witness them doing that, I think, like, yeah, you're just like acting out the ruler of your ascendant is slow moving. And so there's this way in which they also are very contemplative and, again, very much about observing. And there's other stuff in their

chart that you can say as part of that. But I really think it's that being ruled or having your ascendant ruler moving in a way that's not at a fast clip. It's like, okay, what's the quality? What's the benefit of going slow? What's the gift of being somebody who is going to move at a different tempo than society tells us to move at? Again, going back to matriarchy, it's like if you were able to appreciate the needs of everyone as they were and no one had to be normal, And nothing had to fit in. No one had to fit in. We all just got to be who we were and have the needs that we have.

And those needs were met. Then the quality of like moving slow or being reflective is just that. It's just a quality. It's not better or worse than anything else. So that's kind of how I approach it. I also think it's really interesting to look at when you look at progressions, then you see the day or the day that the planet stations directed. if you live that long, it's a technique that it requires a little bit more finesse than I can

really teach here. But the day or the year, because the progressions are symbolically a day for year, so you look at the days after you're born and see like within 90 days, say you live 90 years, within 90 days, does that planet station direct? And that year of your life that's correlated to that, like if you look at each day as a year after you're born, that year of your life will usually signify a major change. So a lot of people are born with Mercury retrograde because Mercury retrogrades three times a year, sometimes four. It retrogrades for three weeks at a time. Like, that's really common. So if you have a Mercury

retrograde in your chart, if you were born with a Gemini or a Virgo rising and you have Mercury retrograde in your chart, yeah, like that's not that uncommon. And there are astrologers that do traditional or ancient astrology, that would be like a lot of the ancients didn't care about Mercury retrograde because it happens so frequently. It was just part of Mercury's motions. But you might notice that like especially if you have Mercury retrograde in your chart and you're ruled by Mercury or your ascendant is ruled by Mercury, then you have some kind of affinity with thinking in a really reflective way, at least in part, or moving in a counterintuitive or even in a rebellious kind of way.

Like, it's against the grain sometimes. And then it all depends on the other parts of your chart that that planet rules. And you can see how that area of your life might also move in a different way. Or you might have a different kind of experience than, quote, unquote, normal or than you're supposed to. Well, what is normal?

But I hope that you are getting the most out of using the code, support 30, For all y'all who haven't, this is the last week that we have this code available. Please use it. You'll get 30 days of free premium content in the Chani app. And this is what I want you to do. I want you to go and look at the Me tab and go read about your ascendant and then read about the planet that rules your ascendant and see, is it retrograde?

Is it not? Do you notice it? What does that mean for you? Do you notice a different rhythm of life that you're in? Like maybe sometimes you move a little fast. in one area and you move way slower or it appears that you move way slower in another. And then there's always like the ways in which planets move that's really interesting to think about in terms of your life events because Mercury's speed changes really quickly.

Mercury does everything quickly like even when it's slow. It's not slow for that long. But a planet like Jupiter is going to be slow for much longer, retrograde for way long, right? Jupiter is retrograde for like five months a year. Saturn is retrograde for almost six months a year. So if you're ruled by Jupiter or Saturn and you have a retrograde, like, yeah, that's like a 50% 40% chance that you're going to have it. So everything means something in the chart. And then you also have to look at like relatively, is this common?

Is this uncommon? I think it's much more uncommon to be born when like Mars is retrograde or Venus is retrograde because they will retrograde far less frequently. So you can also think of it like that. But if you notice that you are ruled by a planet that is retrograde in your chart and important things happen in the sky when that planet is retrograde, I wouldn't look at all the planets. I would just keep it like zone in.

And like if you are ruled by Venus and your Venus is retrograde in your chart, then yes, take stock of the Venus retrogrades and what they do for you. But also you'll notice that every, eight years, Venus will retrograde in the same sign it retrograded in when you were born. And those eight year little periods of time are very important for you. Those will be life-changing little periods of time. So each planet retrogrades in a very different way. And it all will impact your life in different ways as well. When Mercury is stationing retrograde and about to retrograde, it becomes an evening star. And so that is said to be like,

Demetre George talks about that being like a Mercury that's going into the underworld. And then when it's retrograde, but about to become a morning star, that's when it's like triumphant. And Venus has a similar thing, but Mars is totally different in its retrograde. And then Saturn and Jupiter are totally, totally different. They don't even have that kind of motif with them. So it depends on the planet. And it depends on the part of the retrograde you're born in. and it depends on the area of life that that planet is governing, A, your first house, so your life direction, but then also what other house is it governing? And then what house is it living in? And so again, you can read about all of that in the me tab of the Channy app. And you can get the

Chani app for free and all that content for free for 30 days if you use the code support. 30, y'all, that is our podcast this week. I hope I made sense. I have no idea because, again, I haven't slept. Did you sleep over the eclipse? That was so a lot. I hope that this podcast finds you thriving. I had some really, really magical things happened to me over the course of the last 24 hours over the course of the eclipse, things that I had no idea how we're going to happen. But because eclipse season is so much about change, all of these things shifted and changed all to line up to be a perfect symbol of what this astrology is for me personally. And it was really, really good. So the world can be falling apart and burning down and all the things. And the astrology for you

can still land in a way that's personally really exciting in the face of everything. And my question to myself and to all of you is how do we use these things in our personal life to create the world that we want to create? How do we be agents of change in the most potent, powerful way possible? How do I use the good things coming to me to fortify me so that I can create change with great efficacy out in the world? I think that is the point of astrology. At least that's the point of astrology for me. And I think that's the point of this moment. It's not cute. It's a hard moment, but it's a gift to be here.

It is a deep blessing to get to organize with you and to get to create community with you, either online or in person. And I do not take it for granted. I'm not going to cry. Okay, come back next week. We'll talk about the fact that Mercury is stationing direct on the Equinox. That sounds good to me. I like that kind of.

refresh. I'm not saying everything's going to work out by them, but I am saying like, I like that. I like that. I'll take that. I'll take that. Airy season's going to be very heated, though. I will say that, but I like that signature. So come back. We'll talk about all of that and then some. Hopefully I will have slept more. I'm sending you so much love, so many blessings. Bye for now.