Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of May 18th, 2026: A once-in-a-generation Uranus cazimi

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Episode 283In 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 May 18th, 2026, changes the pace… and then changes it again. Mars moves into slow and steady Taurus as Venus enters caring Cancer, and their sextile offers us the nurturing we need after the rush of the last few weeks. Mercury is also on the move, sextiling Neptune, squaring the lunar nodes, and trining Pluto, which gives our conversations and connections a powerful boost. But when the Sun enters Gemini, it meets up with Uranus in the mutable air sign for the first time in 78 years. This cazimi is a wild card, sure to serve shocks, surprises, and sudden shifts — both personally and collectively. Now’s the time to get grounded in the things that matter most and get ready to work with some revolutionary energy.This episode covers:Mars’ entrance into Taurus on Monday, May 18thVenus’ entrance into Cancer on Monday, May 18thMercury’s sextile to Neptune on Monday, May 18thVenus’ sextile to Mars on Monday, May 18thMercury’s square to the lunar nodes on Tuesday, May 19thMercury’s trine to Pluto Rx on Tuesday, May 19thThe Sun’s entrance into Gemini on Wednesday, May 20thVenus’ square to Neptune on Thursday, May 21stThe Uranus cazimi on Friday, May 22ndMercury’s sextile to Saturn on Friday, May 22ndThe Sun’s sextile to Neptune on Sunday, May 24thThis episode was recorded on 05/11/2026.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.

From May 18th to June 9th, we have an incredibly important, beautiful, prosperous window of magic making to make use of. And I want you to make the most of it. Hello and welcome. This is the astrology of the week ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro Bestie, Cheyny Nicholas. In this episode, we're talking about the astrology for the week of May 18th. wherein a very important ingress happens. That means planet moving into a new sign. Venus moves into cancer on Monday the 18th. It's not the only planet that changes sign that day, but I want to start with it because it's the good news and we're going to get to the good news first because I think we all need a little bit of it. So on Monday, May 18th, Venus moves into cancer and that means something very special this year, this moment, this time. It doesn't always mean something special. It always depends on where everything else is. And it just so happens that this time,

that Venus is moving through cancer, it is going to meet up with Jupiter. Jupiter is at the end of cancer right now. And so from May 18th to June 9th, Venus, planet of love, and and beauty and sweetness and goodness and cohesion and unity and unions and justice and working together, Venus is moving towards Jupiter, planet of abundance and wisdom and the teacher and the rainmaker. I mean, Jupiter is the one who makes things happen because of its principle of abundance. So Venus is moving towards Jupiter. They are going to be perfectly aligned, on June 9th, which is a day that is filled with magical properties. So whatever we do on June 9th is imbued with sweetness and connection and the principle of union because Venus and also

luck and prosperity and abundance and generativity and wisdom because Jupiter. When these two come together, it's really special. But they are coming together in the very important sign of cancer. It's important because cancer is where Jupiter is exalted, meaning we can get to all of those good things by doing it in a cancer style. By doing life in a cancer style, we access the beauty and the support and the opulence of Jupiter. What does that mean? Cancerian style is, of course, about care and about nourishment and nurturing. But primarily, cancer is about tending to what is local. Why? Because cancer, we could say, is the sign of the parent. And so it's like the parent-child, symbiotic relationship of nourishment and nurturance. It is the waters of the womb. It is the place of

gestation. And so it's very immediate. It's very local. It's very like within arm's reach. I will care for you, I will tend to you, I will hold you, I will feed you, I will make sure that you are safe. But and also, cancer's planet, ruling planet is the moon, and the moon is the closest planetary body to the earth. It is our closest planetary ally. It is the one that is local to us. And so everything that happens in cancer that is good is good because it's local. It's good because it's right here. It's good because we can just get nourished where we are. We don't have to go somewhere.

We don't have to be some big thing. We don't have to be a fucking celebrity. We don't have to be rich. We don't have to be above. We don't have to be big. We just have to be present. We just have to extend ourselves out to what is immediately there and also receive what is immediately sweet and nourishing and wonderful.

So Jupiter, planet of abundance. is exalted, meaning it's in a superpowered state. Jupiter, abundance is present when we double down on what is local. So what can you do between May 18th and June 9th to imbue your local everyday, present day reality and life with sweetness and abundance and understand that luck is right here. You don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to be anything else. You just have to double down on your investment in what is right here and accessible. I want to bring up a couple of examples of what this is like. Jupiter has been in cancer for almost a year.

It's going to leave us. It's not going to be around for much longer. June 9th is the last great kind of epic day of Jupiter and Cancer. I want to remind us all that last year on the Jupiter and Cancer Kazimi, meaning when Jupiter and the Sun came together, Zoran Mamdani won the primary. He became our Democratic candidate for mayor. Why?

Yes, he had great slogans and great videos and great policies that he kept reiterating over and over and over, kept us on course. But what he did is he accessed him and his whole campaign, his whole team knew how to tap into the power, of the local, knew how to keep the messaging local, knew how to say, I'm not going anywhere on my first trip as mayor, I'm staying in the great city of New York because that is where I will be mayor.

New how to be like, I am from here. There's a Yiddish term called Doykat. It is from the Jewish labor bund. That means hereness. That means here where we are is our country. Molly crabapple just wrote a book entitled exactly that. It is brilliant. It is a full history of the labor boom. Please go get it. But the idea of heerness of doycat and the idea that we get from the great twin cities of neighboring, of knowing how to defend each other from the onslaught of horrors via ice and the tyrannies that persist in our world because of the administration. we're living under. Neighboring, heerness, local power.

That is where we get our abundance. That is how we tap into the wisdom available now. And the ancient astrologers talked about this. They said that Jupiter and Cancer spoke of the local power that would rise up, the gatherings of people that would come together to fight tyranny, basically, essentially. and that people that were usually on the margins would most likely rise to positions of power and especially women. So I just want us all to remember that no matter what the situation looks like, our power is with each other. Our power is in neighboring and our power is in

heerness. Because in that, we understand that solidarity is never about one person winning, it's about all of us going together. We leave no one behind. The power of making sure that we live in and that we are in moments of unison, strengthens our resolve and gets us where we're going very quickly. And I want you to know that going into that first week of June. So whatever's happening that first week of June, the astrology is saying the power is right here. It's knocking on your next door neighbor's door. It's canvassing for the candidates that you know need to win, not because once they win, we'll just go back to life and not ever think about politics again. It's because we work to get

people elected. And then once they're in seats of power, we hold them accountable and we are in relationship with them until the day their term ends. And then we do it with. the next candidate, that our participation in things like elections are never won and done. They are ongoing the whole time and then we start all over again. That is the beauty and the power and the responsibility and the privilege of being a community member. And community and neighboring and heerness and solidarity are all words that fit under cancer. especially under Jupiter and cancer, and especially when Venus, planet of relationship and is like,

how do we bond? How do we come together? How do we create justice? We can create justice when we are knowing that we are on the same side. I'm on your side. Even if we disagree, I still want you to have health care. Even if we disagree, I still want you to have a living wage. Even if we disagree, I need you to have housing. I need you to have health care. And everything that you need, I need you to eat and sleep well. and be hydrated and have the health care that you need. So I say all that to say, that's my Jupiter and Cancer lecture. I'm not going to make it again for another 12 years because at the end of June, Jupiter's going to leave cancer.

I mean, I might make it again on this podcast a couple more times. But I need us to know that the Venus Jupiter conjunction is so sweet and it's so blessed. And if all you do is have a glorious good time with it, great. But I want you to understand the power of it. the power of it is in doing the hard work, doing the inconvenient, irritating, annoying work of neighboring, of heerness, of solidarity, of doycat, of being a generative hub for the place that you live in because that is our duty and that is our potential. And that is a gateway to our greatness is understanding how am I.

helping to facilitate all that could be and all that is glorious in this neighborhood, on this street, on this block, in this friendship, in this network, in this community, in this meeting, in this situation that is, again, sometimes annoying and definitely inconvenient. That is a portal to our greatness, our goodness, our happiness and sweetness and connection and love and care for ourselves and each other and for the world. Okay. So mark June 9th on your calendar and know that from May 18th to June 9th, we've got a window of time. And you don't have to do anything giant on June 9th. But I want you to do something that is helping you to feel like you're knitting the fabric of your life together by nourishing and being nourished, by giving and receiving, by being in a exchange with the world

around you. If you want to throw a block party, amazing. If you want to go canvassing, amazing. If you want to volunteer for something phenomenal. If you want to start a community garden, yes. If you want to do something to make your street feel cuter, be safer, whatever the thing is. And by safety, I mean being more connected to what each other needs and meeting those needs, because that's how we get safer. Then yes, anything, anything, anything and everything.

And then you can just use June 9th to literally do anything gorgeous. June 8th, June 9th, June 10th, all those days are imbued with this beautiful Venus-Jupiter conjunction. Really rare. It can only happen every 12 years, and it doesn't even necessarily happen once every 12 years. So it's this gorgeous little nugget, and it's passing really quickly, and I want us to tap into it. So starting Monday, May 18th, we are tapping into the power of the Venus-Jupiter conjunction. And we are planning. what we're going to do that second week of June to really make an impact and really sweeten our situation, which is good for all. Also on Monday, I know, we're not even through Monday.

Also on Monday, Mars is moving into Taurus. Not as good of a scenario for Mars, but Mars and Venus are going to make a sex style and I like the situation. They're going to help each other out. Mars is going to eventually, you know, quickly go to square Pluto next week, which is not great. It's a little gnarly. So again, I want us to double down on how do we take care of each other because next week it's all going to be about power struggles and things that are kind of ugly. And we have to balance all the ugliness in the world with caretaking and meeting our needs and each other's needs so that we remember what's worth fighting for. The world is worth fighting for because our friends and our family and our loved ones. and our art and our gorgeous people are in it. That's why it's worth fighting for. Also,

also on Monday, Mercury Plan of Communication is Mejia Sexta with Neptune, which is really lovely for fostering dialogue that is imaginative and that moves us beyond restrained and constrained thinking and ideologies. The good conversations and the important ways of thinking about things, the paradigm shifts, let's say, can. keep rolling out on Tuesday. Mercury goes to square the nodes. So I do think there is a decision that we need to make on Tuesday. And then it trines Pluto, which is helpful for thinking really deeply about something and being able to excavate the truth of the matter. And then on Wednesday, the 20th, we are in Gemini season. The sun moves in to Gemini and all bets are off. All

comedy of errors is on deck because the sun and Uranus are about to meet up for their Kazimi, which is going to happen later in the week. So it does feel like a whirligigig of information this Gemini season, which is always the case, but this one is extra amped. And so I think our feeds are going to be wild and weird and wacky this Gemini season. And I think certain Gemini's are going to be even stranger than they normally are. Yes, I'm talking to you. And yes, I'm talking about him. So on Thursday, Venus and cancer will make a square to Neptune. Really good day for daydreaming. Really good day for being absolutely delulu about what it is that you can make happen on June 9th. Just know that you're a little extra delulu and don't take yourself so seriously, but do dream wildly. And then on Friday the 22nd, we have the Uranus Kazimi. Friday the 22nd is a wild card. I know I've said that about other days recently. This one is another one. This one is actually a beginning. It's a seed of potential. These two planets have not come together in over seven decades in this sign. And so this is a new

Uranus cycle. In Gemini, it speaks about a new world order. Now, I mean that literally. The world is reordering itself. The nation states aren't quite sure about who is what and how it all goes. And at the same time, that's the big political, global situation. It's terrifying. It's destabilizing. it's going to remain destabilized for at least seven years, I think. I don't think we're really going to understand what the destabilizing that has happened over the past year will lead us to until about six, seven years from now. So just know that. We're in this process of things being really in flux, but it's also important to remember things are in flux. Nothing is solid yet. It's all changing. Everything is very much in play. It's destabilizing internally, but

But it's also good to remind ourselves that nothing is set in stone ever, but especially now because there's so much in air and fire. Everything is moving and shifting at wild rates. But also internally, that is also true. In your personal life, I want you to look around and see, like, how is my own personal world order being reordered priorities, what I focus my time on, what's important to me, what used to be important to me, what I want to center, relationships, how are they being reordered and restructured? We don't know yet because we're really new into this transit, but I just want to offer that as a kind of paradigm for us all to think about. And of course, I want you to go and listen to your reading for the week because I talk all about where this is

happening in your chart. And that's very important for us to understand where Gemini is in our chart. We don't have to have a planet there. We just have to know where that sign is, where it is, and what is the reordering that's being asked of us? And how can we use Friday to, like, plant a seed of potential, plant a seed of intention to say, I want this part of myself or my life or my thinking to be reordered? Like, I don't want my insecurities to make decisions for me. What part of me is making this decision. What part of me is wanting to be in relationship with that person or that part of them? Like, what is my thinking and how could I use a reordering of the ways I'm thinking or the reordering of a paradigm that I'm thinking in? I do think this day, Friday, is full of

breakthroughs, potential breakthroughs. I also think it's full of chaos. I don't know if that'll be in our personal lives or in our collective situation. or because of certain Gemini is in charge. But I do think that this day will bring about a certain type of electricity. So it might feel shocking, it might feel really unpredictable, or might be really exciting. There might be some really exciting innovations and ideas and ways of communicating. Mercury is also making a sex style to Saturn that day. So it's helpful for having a epiphany that's really practical and practically applicable.

So there's not a ton that's like practical with this astrology. And then on Sunday, the sun makes a sex style to Neptune, which is helpful, which is lovely. It also means that Uranus and Neptune are very close to making their sex style, which is really energizing and really exciting. Again, it is fire and air. So think of what happens to fire when it gets a big gust of air. It's a whoosh. And that's what this year feels like. It's energizing. It's wild. It's weird. It is sometimes entertaining. It is sometimes so destabilizing because nothing is grounded or so much we can say in the skies right now is in fire and air. And Jupiter is about to go into Leo. so that's going to up the ante for the fire. And so it's all ungrounded. And that is unmooring. So we have to be

the ground. And again, I want us to really use this medicine of Venus and Jupiter coming together on June 9th, to ground us in our networks, to remind us of the ways in which we're building ecosystems of care right now. They're being imbued with a special property of success. so that it can carry us through the times where there's not a lot of hydration and there's not a lot of grounding. We have to ground through one another. We have to ground through our practice of neighboring and heerness and being local. All right. Let's take a question from the audience. Hi, Cheney. You are probably so over answering questions about cusps, But my question is, if we do not consider cusps, why do we consider shadow periods?

What is the difference? And exactly, what is a shadow period? Great question. Cusps and shadow periods are fully, totally, a thousand percent different. And it's not that some astrologers, many astrologers, love to talk about cusps. I don't use them because every single degree of the zodiac, is ruled by a certain planet. It has specific associations with every single degree of the zodiac. It's stronger in some degrees of the zodiac than it is in others. It has a special

affiliation with some parts of the numbers of the degrees of that sign than it does with other degrees of that sign. So everything is broken up in these small little bits in traditional astrology. But that doesn't mean that there aren't traditional astrologers that talked about planets acting like they were in the next sign over. I don't, again, work like that. I like to work with where the planet actually is because I think every single thing is really important. Cusps are an idea that a planet is going to act like it is in the next sign over or maybe in the previous sign. Again, I don't know. I don't really use it. So I'm not well versed in it. But I think that that's the general idea is that like if you're,

born at the edge of Gemini, then you're more of a cancer. Or you might feel like you vacillate between the two. And I always say, if we're talking about sun signs, like the sun in Leo will quite often have mercury in cancer, Venus in cancer, or Mercury. If it's at the edge of Leo, then it'll often have mercury in Virgo or maybe even Venus in Virgo, because Mercury and Venus travel close to the sun. So it's very likely to have those two planets in the sign over one way or another. And so that can lead you to feel like you are that other sign or you might have a whole group of planets in that other sign. So that's what that is to me. Shadow periods are when, say, Mercury goes retrograde, Mercury Station's retrograde. Well, it's been, it's going to go backwards,

right? When Mercury Station is retrograde, it's going to go backwards a certain number of degrees. but it's already gone forwards over that degrees before it stations retrograde to go backward over it. So the shadow period is the degrees that it already went through, that it's going to back up through, and then go forward in again. And so those degrees, that length, think of it as a stretch of road. You drive forward from point A to point B. Point B, you stop, put the car in reverse, and go back to point A. Then you stop, put the car and drive, and go back to point B. That section of road is the shadow period,

because you're going back over it, back and forth. Forward once, then backwards once, then forward again. So there's a period of time before the retrograde and after the retrograde where the planet is just going over the same stretch of road, let's say, that it did in the retrograde. And so that's the shadow period, which is very different than a planet moving just from one sign to the next. I hope that helps. All right, y'all, come back next week. We'll talk about the fact that on Monday the 25th, Mars will be squaring Pluto. Big power dynamics, big power plays. Monday the 25th, we're going to be going underneath the surface of things.

We're going to need to investigate and scour the depths to get the answers. that we need. And if it feels like there's a weird power dynamic at play, there probably is. How do you not get caught up in it? And how do you stay rooted in your own sense of power and agency? And at the end of the week, there's a full moon in Saj and it looks like it's pretty fun and pretty adventurous. So come back and we'll talk all about next week then. Bye for now.