Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas - The Week of October 20th, 2025: The sunshine and shadows of Scorpio season and the New Moon in Libra

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Episode 253In 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 October 20th, 2025, is equal parts sunshine and shadows. The New Moon in Libra spotlights sweetness, connection, and fresh starts — and then the Sun moves into broody Scorpio, where it faces off with the planet of power. This is a time to honor both the light and the dark, to embrace what scares us as much as what soothes us. Ready to go deep?This episode covers:The New Moon in Libra on Tuesday, October 21stNeptune’s re-entrance into Pisces on Wednesday, October 22ndThe Sun enters Scorpio on Wednesday, October 22ndThe Sun’s square to Pluto on Friday, October 24thMercury’s trine with Jupiter on Friday, October 24thMercury’s trine with Saturn on Saturday, October 25thThis episode was recorded on 10/10/2025.For more, check out your free daily horoscope on the homepage of the CHANI app — now on iOS and Android.P.S. Did you see that Chani started a book club? Created in collaboration with Allstora, a queer-owned book marketplace, The Next Chapter with Chani Nicholas is your chance to explore Chani’s favorite titles and build community around books that reckon with and reimagine the world we’re living in. When you join, you’ll be sent a new book every month, and you’ll also get access to community pages where we can all chat about what we’re reading. Click here to learn more and sign up.The music featured in the podcast was created by Latashá.

Three things about this week. One, we're finishing up something that has been lingering for a long time. We're going back to something that we put down in March. We're finishing something else up. There's a lot of energy. There's a lot of significations about returning to something. And there are significations about closing the loop with something else. And we're moving into a new sunset.

season. We're also going to have an amazing, excellent, fantastic conversation on Friday. Hello and welcome. This is the Astrology of the Week Ahead podcast. I'm your host, your Astro, besty, Channy Nicholas. In this podcast, we're talking about the astrology for the week of October 20th. And we open up with a new moon, which is always going to be about new beginnings. but hold the phone. This one is a little different, or this one is one of those new moons that's happening at the very end, end,

end, end, and end of a sign. But before we get into all of that, y'all, I'm really excited to announce that I'm starting my own book club. It's called The Next Chapter. It is with a queer-owned business and book market place called All Stora. And when you join,

Every month, you'll get a book picked out by yours truly, and you'll also be given access to a community space where we can all come together and talk about how this author is handling a certain subject or how it's starting to help us to see life in a different way. My hope is that the books we choose and read together will become a blueprint for a better world, for another way of seeing the world and seeing ourselves as we struggle through and grapple with and celebrate the beauty and the difficulties of life. Head to allstora.com to register. I cannot wait to begin reading with you. This new moon is happening at the very end of Libra. And the very end of Libra is about the balance of all things. The very end of Libra is like, well, let's take everything

into consideration. It's not just you and me. It's not just this and that. It's the balance of everything. How does everything fold into or what side does everything land on in terms of these scales of justice, of balance, of equality? Where does everything land? And if we're going to take the sum total of everything into account, where does that land us? So in a way, it does feel like there's some accounting that happens with this new moon. Again, feel free to think of it as a new beginning. But because it's happening at the end of a sign, it's like a new beginning that wraps up quickly or it's about wrapping something up or it has a feeling of like almost finished. There's this new little thing that we're going to do within it, but it's almost come to a close. That happens on

Tuesday. I don't love a new moon at the end of a sign. It's not that this is bad. It's not that it's good. It's kind of neither. It's got some really good things going for it, though, I will say. Venus is in Libra. So it superpowers the nature of this new moon for it to be about creating connections. And it imbues the new moon with a kind of fortification of goodness. And the new moon is being squared by Jupiter. And Jupiter is exalted in cancer. So it is, you know, assisted by the two planets we want it to be assisted by, which is excellent news. It's just that it's happening at the very end of a sign. So there might be a feeling of like depletion by the time we get to Tuesday. The tank is low. And so what I would suggest using

this new moon for is what in our lives, again, given the sum total of everything, needs to come back into balance or how might we tip the scales in one direction of our lives or our world in a direction that would help the other side come up, like what needs to come up, what needs to go down. So really look at the systems of your life. Look at your body. Look at the ways in which you're doing your work. The seasons have changed. This is the end of Libra season. We are now fully in fall in the northern hemisphere or fully in spring in the southern hemisphere. That requires something different from you. It requires you to sleep in a different way or to think about how to approach your sleep in a different way. It requires you to think about the foods you need to

eat. Like what is seasonal? Like imagine we could only take in, we could only eat, we could only consume, we could only partake in and receive what was available to us locally. What are those things and how could being in accordance with what is local and the shifts in terms of our agriculture and the seasons and all of that, what could, you know, taking in that those sources of nourishment do to replenish our systems? Do we need to wear a scarf now? Do we need to do spring cleaning if you're in the southern hemisphere? Like what does this season call for? And again, because we're at the very end of Libra season, we've had almost 30 days in this new, either fall or spring situation that we're in. What has it helped you to adjust into?

The thing about the equinox is that it is that tipping point of light, right? We had the equinox, which is equal day and equal night in both hemispheres. And then in the northern hemisphere, we're tipping towards the dark. In the southern hemisphere, we're tipping towards the light. So given that fact, what are we doing to move in accordance with the change of light? If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, this is a really good time to start to move the focus of your life towards a more internal state. We're moving towards the solstice now. Of course, we've got Saoan or Halloween or Dia de las Mortos in the middle. we've got that cross-quarter day. But we want to think about how we are going towards a greater

stillness and a greater introspection and how deeply necessary that is. That doesn't mean we negate our responsibilities or we don't show up for the things that we said yes to or we don't partake in life and all the ways we need to do life. But it does mean that we create space for doing things that are more internal. We do start to bring the energy. Imagine a plant, right? Like in summer, it's like full bloom and then it gives you the fruit or it gives the flower or it does its thing. And then the energy of the plant starts to receive back into the root system. In the Northern Hemisphere, we need to start to recede back. We need to pull the energy back and down and in to a place that is, we could describe as the mysterious dark, as the place of regeneration, of recuperation,

of that healing darkness, of that really gorgeous fertile place of stillness, darkness, and not being so out there, so expending of our energy that we miss the opportunity to regenerate. So this is such a beautiful new moon to think about that, because it comes at the end, but it is in with the support of Venus and Jupiter, it's such a good new moon to think about, like, okay, how am I closing the first month of this new season? How am I closing this, you know, sun sign season that is about initiating us into a new season and a new relationship to light? The more darkness we have during the day, well, the more darkness we have within a 24 hours of the day, the more focus there is on.

again, reading, reflection, sleeping, shutting it down. And are you okay with doing a little bit more of that? You don't have to go like, you know, into extremes. This is about gradually moving into that place towards the solstice. Of course, if you're in the southern hemisphere, it is about gradually moving forward. But I think if you talk to a lot of different types of holistic practitioners, these points in the seasonal shifts are really delicate. Like our bodies go through a lot. So what does your immune system need right now? And sleep can help a lot with that. Of course, all the things that we do that benefit ourselves are really important right now. We want to resource our bodies and resource our psyches and resource our emotional systems. I don't know

about you, but I can guess that you're probably the same as me. We're burnt out. I mean, the world is entirely too much. Again, it doesn't mean we negate our responsibility to serve it, to show up for it, to be very conscientious and very thoughtful about how we enter into the public domain, what we do, what we commit to. Again, this is a new moon happening at the end of Libra. This is about the balance of all things. This is definitely about seeking liberation and justice for all. And you're part of that balance. So what can you give to the imbalances in the world? And what do you need in terms of your own personal balance and imbalance? How can you adjust your own inner landscape, inner scales as you still show up and still serve and, you know, when do we

move in to the world in a more direct way, when do we need to pull back a little bit to replenish ourselves, knowing that it is always a relay race, right? We're always passing the baton to each other. Who has what? Who's holding what? What do I need to hold? What can I let go of? So I really want you to think about, as we move through these first couple of days, about how you're rebalancing the entirety of your life right now. Not for like ever and ever, but for this moment, given the world, given your internal landscape, given what fascism has taken from our systems so far in these many years that we have been really privy and really exposed to the rot that occurs within the systems we live within.

So we stay accountable, we stay engaged, and we stay very attuned. to what we can do, what we can't do at each moment, and it changes day to day. Sometimes, for me, it changes hour to hour. I know what I need better, you know, in this condition and that condition, in this place, and that place. Some days I'm good at it and some days I'm not good at it. You know, sometimes I really, really suck at taking care of myself. And that's a learning opportunity, as it all is. It's a growth opportunity. So Monday, Tuesday especially, we're looking at how and what is in and out of balance, how to bring it back into some kind of balance for this moment, knowing it will change again. But my main question is to you, how have you done for this

first four weeks of this new season? And have you made any adjustments? Are you still demanding the same thing from yourself as you were in summer or as you were in winter if you're in the Southern Hemisphere? It's different now. Your body is going to react. You. You're going to react to this season differently? Can you be okay with that? Can you adjust to that? Or do you think you need to be even keeled same, same, same every day of the year, every moment of your life, every part of whatever cycle you're in? That's just a patriarchal pyramid scheme, I think. On the 22nd, on Wednesday, Neptune slides back into Pisces. And that's why I think that this this week is kind of edgy. It's like the new moon happens at the edge of Libra and then Neptune

slides is at the edge of Ares and slides back into Pisces the next day. And then the moon moves from Libra into Scorpio. So there's a lot of these like transitions. And that's the first three days of the week. So we can think of like the first half of the week as like ending some things and then returning back to things we put down again in March. The last time that Neptune was in Pisces was in March. And then it moved into Aries, which has been very active, as we all know. Neptune in Ares is very much a war of ideals, Ares being war-y and Neptune being ideals. And so we've seen that a great amount. And, you know, I really feel like we're very much in the upside down place where people that speak in ways that I think are atrocious about a broad range of subjects all of a sudden

I find myself agreeing with in a certain area of life. And you're like, how am I enjoying or agreeing with or feeling validated by somebody I also disagree with so specifically? And so acutely on so many other human rights issues. But here we are in the upside down where you're speaking sense when you're the person that, you know, open the doors for the things that don't make sense in the world. So it's very much like that. I feel like Neptune in Ares has just been all about like this inflammation about our ideals and like how we find ourselves in corridors, in Venn diagrams where we're like, oh my God, we all of a sudden. and are here together, this very unlikely group of people.

And what are your motives for being here? Because I know what mine are, and I'm very clear on that, but I'm not clear on your motives. Anywho, it goes back into Pisces, which isn't better or worse. It's just that it's a return back to some kind of maybe normal or return back to something that we put down, especially in the area of our chart that contains Pisces. So very important for you to go listen to your weekly. reading in the Chani app and think about where Pisces is in your chart. It's not about if you have something in Pisces. It's about understanding where Pisces is, what house it occupies in

your chart, because Neptune's coming back there to finish something up for the next couple of months. It's going to be there into 2026. So this is like one of the big shifts that we're going back to. All these planets moved into new signs for the first five, six months of the first five, six months of the year, five months of the year, and then they're going to spend the last part of this year moving back into the old sign. Neptune, Saturn, and Uranus are all going to shift back into the signs they were in previously. So there's a bit of a return to whatever we were doing early in this year. And this is the first signal of that. Also in the 22nd, we move into spooky season officially. I know we're already there, but, you know, as an astrologer, when the sun moves

into Scorpio. That's like officially spooky season for me. Sun moves in to Scorpio. Deep intensity and like wild sensitivity. You know this because you have a Scorpio in your life. And no matter how tough they seem on the outside. And some Scorpios are very like inverse. Like they're very sensitive and very sweet and very loving on the outside. And then you get to like an interlayer and you're like, oh, you've got something in there. Like, okay, this is not for play. And then some obviously lead with the black leather jacket and spikes, but they're like super gooey and very sensitive on the inside.

I don't care what you say about Scorpio's. They are sensitive and they feel incredibly deeply. The depths of emotion they go to maybe are the greatest ever. It's not a contest. but if it was, maybe they would win. So we know we're in for something deep. We know we're going into the mysteries. Again, this is very northern hemispherist. This is very northern hemispherist of me. But this astrology is from the northern hemisphere. So what are you going to do? But we're moving deeper into the darkness, right? And so the sun moving into Scorpio is that invitation. Again,

we're going to go through Sowan, Halloween, Dia de las mortos. So we're moving towards that. This is the opening of that. So the sun moves into Scorpio on Wednesday, but by Friday, it squares Pluto. So the themes of intensity and emotional evocation are ever more on Friday. There's something deep and cathartic. It's quick. It goes by quickly, but there is something that feels very transformative because of the depths it brings us to. But also on Friday, we have a Mercury Trine Jupiter situation. And then on Saturday, we have Mercury trine Saturn. Basically, Mercury is giving us really great news Friday and Saturday. We have some game plans. We have some different ways of seeing things. There's opportunity. There is an opening. There is a way in which we're looking at

something both in terms of its expansiveness, but also in terms of its reality. That's really helpful. So there's just some excellent, constructive conversations and very healing, very nourishing and nurturing conversations to be had Friday, Saturday, and into the weekend. And that's exceptionally helpful because I'll say this, Sunday the 19th of October, like some of you are listening to this on Sunday the 19th of October, Mercury and Mars have come together in Scorpio. And I was talking last week about this being an excellent mark for strategy and strategizing and figuring out our game plan in doing a very intricate, you know, mind map for all of us,

for everything we want to achieve and anything we need to be cunning about. But also, like, those can be fighting words, maybe very subterranean, subtle, maybe even passive, aggressive, aggressive fighting words. But that could be a hard conversation. And then this week gives us the opposite of that. This week gives us healing. This week gives us a game plan. This week is like, okay, but you know what? You know, like you have that hard conversation with someone and then you talk to a trusted advisor or person or companion. And they just help you organize it and like massage it and open it up. That's what Mercury Jupiter does. It opens things up. And then Saturn's like, and here's how we hold. at all. Here's how we'll do it. And it kind of like sorts it out for us. So we start the week off with like just having had maybe a prickly conversation or again like a deep and intense one that is necessary for our strategy, but it's hard. And then we end this week with a really helpful

optimistic and, you know, like conversation that's full of opportunity and a really helpful structure. So that's nice. I like the book. end of that. If we're going to have the tough conversation, it's really lovely to end up in a place that feels really fruitful. And like, there's a lot of possibility. So struggle through the hard stuff at the beginning of the week, intellectually, conversationally, because we're going to get somewhere really good with it. And I think that's an important thing to remember when we're in the struggle. I think we often, I often forget that it's going to end up somewhere good. I'm going to get through it. If I keep going and I keep, you know, wanting to learn, I keep showing up,

it's going to end up somewhere good. I just have to remember that or when I remember that it helps me in the struggle-ly part of it. This is going on to answer a question about light leaders. What's a light leader? Well, either you're born when the sun is in the sky or when the sun has set. And yes, there can be a particularly challenging situation when the sun is like halfway in the sky. and halfway set or halfway rising, but halfway hasn't risen. So those times are really challenging. And we make a call on the app in terms of our calculations of that. But just the bare bones of it, if you're born at night, the moon is what we call your light leader. And if you're born in the day, the sun is what we call your light leader. Now, the moon and the sun are always going to be

super important for everyone always. They are the luminaries. They are above and beyond kind of a lot of other things in your chart. They are so important. It's like our life force and our body that is animated by our life force. The moon is our body, our emotions. It is the vehicle through which our spirit, our sun, our like, you know, divine light. It moves through the body. It moves through the body. body and has a physical human experience because we have a body. That's the moon and the sun is that, you know, spark of divinity that we get to embody through this physical apparatus. So sun and moon. So important. Always, always, always, always. That's where I start in the chart. But when I read somebody's chart, I look to see, are they born at night or are they born during the day? Is the sun above or

below the horizon, above or below the ascendant or the descendant. So even if it's just above the ascendant, I read it as a day chart. Even if it's just below the descendant, the horizon, I read it as a night chart. A lot of astrologers, like we can talk about this until the day is done and then some. But we have an app, so we had to make a call. So if your sun is just below the horizon, we say that it's a night chart. If your sun is just above the horizon, we say that that's it's still a day chart. So somebody wrote in and said, how can I be a night chart if I'm born at 6.30 in the morning? Well, it's because the sun hadn't officially popped up yet. So it's not that it's not technically what we would think of as daytime, but in some places in the world,

6.30 in the morning, in some parts of the year, like fall and winter, that's not going to be sunrise yet. The sun will have not officially come up, even. Even if it's dawn, even if we're getting some light, the sun is still below the horizon. On the app, we still consider that a night chart. And if I was giving you a reading, I would too. And, you know, you can hedge your bets and kind of like look at stuff, you know, in this way and that way. But I like definitive rules. I don't know. Call me a purist, maybe. But that's how I do astrology. I like having definitions. So this is what you need to do. You know, go to the Chani app and you need to look at the app and look at your chart, look at the me page.

And if you look at your sun and look at your moon, one of them will say, this is your light leader. You have a day chart. The sun is your light leader. You have a night chart. The moon is your light leader. So this is what I do in readings. If you have a night chart and the moon is your light leader, I'll go to your ascendant first. Always.

I always start with the ascendant. That is the entry point of life. that is what, you know, sets up the entire thing. That is your motivation for living. Anything in the first house is going to be so paramount to me. Then I talk about the ruler of your ascendant because that's where your life is being driven towards wherever the ruler of your ascendant is. That's the area of life I know you have to go to. And then I go to your light leader. So if you're born at night, I'll go to your moon first. So if you have a reading with me and you're a night chart, I might not get to your sun until like 35, 40 minutes into the reading, depending on what else is going on.

But I won't get to like, you have a sun in Ares and all that whole prototype for a long time because there are other things that I think need to take precedence. Not that it diminishes the importance of the sun or the moon, but it's just that if you have a night chart, your moon is in charge. Your moon is in charge, Venus and Mars. Those are the planets that can do them most for you in the most kind of direct way. If you have a day chart, your sun, Jupiter, and Saturn, those are the planets that can do the most kind of definitive, straightforward work for you in the world. And I want to know if the day planets are in a good position in a day chart. And I want to know if the night planets are in a good position in a night

chart. Mercury is the queerest planet of them all. It can be a day planet or a day planet or a night planet depending on its phase, depending on its situation, whole other conversation. But just so you know, Mercury goes in between. Mercury is both and all the other things. So in this paradigm in traditional astrology, we see things in terms of teams. And it's a really fascinating way to look at your chart. And we do it in the Chani app. So if you are a day chart, pay special attention to your sun, Jupiter, and Saturn. If you're a night chart, pay special attention to your moon, Venus, and Mars, because they are your tickets. It's not that the other planets aren't important. It's just that these groupings of planets have a special affinity

with each other and whatever your group of planets is, you'll probably just notice how dominant they are in your life and what they can help you to do. And then I look at the other planets as secondarily important. They're no less important, but they are, I know I just said two things that contradict each other. All planets are important. I always want to know what they're all doing, but it is a way to categorize, like, which ones are going to help us directly get to the things we want to do, and then the other grouping of planets is still supporting and also attacking. This is the other thing. If you have a day chart, Jupiter is your best, best, best, best planet. If you have a night chart, Venus is your best, best, best, best planet. So if it's already in

good condition, that is extra good for you. If you have a day chart, Mars is your hardest, hardest, hardest, hardest planet. If you have a night chart, Saturn is your hardest, hardest, hardest planet. And if those are already in tough conditions or doing hard things in your chart, that will be extra hard for you. In traditional astrology, there's always both sides. Always. We don't get out of anything. It's a little hardcore. Okay, well, I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you've got more questions about day and night charts. It's a fascinating subject. It is a fascinating paradigm and a whole teaching tool in traditional astrology. One of the reasons why I'm obsessed with traditional astrology because it gives us all of these different demarcations

and helps us to understand the qualities of each thing that we're looking at. And every chart is so specific. So like Venus in your chart is not the same as Venus in my chart. Because if you have a day chart, if I have a night chart, you know, it's functioning differently. All right. I'm sending you so much love, listen, come back next week. Next week we have a phenomenal, gorgeous signature. Mars is going to make a trine to Jupiter on the 27th of October, and I love it. It is so fierce, it is so caring, it is so hyper-focused on winning, but in a very strategic way and in a way that's going to be nourishing and abundant for all. Or at least it's in imbued with a signature of abundance and an abundance that is really nourishing. All right, I'll see you back here then.

Bye for now.