I can’t stop crying. None of us can. Oceans of grief roll through for a multitude of reasons at any given time. It’s hard to think, plan, or construct a full sentence. The greater Los Angeles area is still in an acute crisis as I write this. The winds are not through with us, the lack of rain looms, and the electric current of fear that more untold devastation may be around the corner is palpable.
Whole neighborhoods have been wiped out. Altadena, a historic Black community birthed in the Civil Rights Movement, is gone; the Palisades and Pacific Coast Highway charred; wildlife terrorized; and ecosystems decimated. There are toxins in our air that will do god-knows-what to our bodies, our babies, our food, our earth, and our communal health.
If there’s one thing that becomes clear in these moments, it’s how much we need each other. The way I’ve hung onto each and every word that anyone around me says, desperate to know what other people are feeling and thinking and deciding and processing. Who lost what? How many? Who needs a home? Where did they go? They lost everything? They don’t know yet? Who else do I need to text, call, leave a voice memo for? It’s a trauma response to be sure, but it feels like ancient technology embedded deeply within us. Reach out. Stay in touch. Check in. Community is how we survive this. Caring for one another is how we discover the best of ourselves — it is the meaning of our lives. The greatest purpose we could ever live into.
We need us. Especially because we are completely unprepared for the repercussions of climate collapse. We are in the middle of one of the worst disasters known to this city of angels, and we are amid the inauguration of the next President of the United States who is (among so many other exceptionally challenging things) a climate-change denier. About to take the throne is a man who has sworn to open the floodgates for even more capitalist, colonial, corporate violence to occur.
The current villains of our story are unmasked and unashamed, proud of the profits they’ll reap from our losses.
Months ago, when I originally looked at the astrology of January, I grimaced. Packed with signatures that read as relentless challenges, the opening monologue of 2025 was not one I was looking forward to. Especially knowing the results of the US election.
The month began with a Mars–Pluto opposition on January 2nd. This is the mark of something grueling, cruel, harsh, ruthless, volcanic, extreme, and scarring. It’s also a mark of major power plays. It coincided with a week of extreme violence in New Orleans, New York, and Las Vegas here in the United States, as well as Trump’s claims that Canada should become the 51st state, that Greenland and Panama should be under American control, and that he wouldn’t rule out using military force to make that happen.
On January 6th, Mars retrograded back into Cancer (the sign it has an extraordinarily difficult time in), signaling a sticky situation that would take months to clear up (it will be retrograde here until the end of February). In Cancer, Mars brings up issues of security, family, and home.
Home.
It was, of course, on January 7th that the fires in Los Angeles began. The Palisades and Eaton fires, among the largest, immediately evacuated thousands, destroying street after street of our community’s homes. Decades of memories, proof of lineages, lives up in smoke. And we are still counting losses, readying ourselves for whatever is next. Praying for rain.
The Full Moon in Cancer that sat with Mars retrograde (still within orb of the opposition to Pluto) on January 13th magnified difficult themes about home and family. From a distance and the “comfort” of my vantage point in 2024, this Full Moon looked painful because Mars so often aligns with times wreaked with havoc — worse in a sign it doesn’t do well in, and more devastatingly so when retrograde. Cancer is a sign that knows how to activate our most primal emotions, has us swimming in the depths of our feelings, and makes us want to curl up in the fetal position and cry for mom.
It was clear that the middle of the month would hurt.
But this pain that we are in, the extreme loss we are experiencing, is at least in part man-made. Not to say that fires aren’t part of the cycles of nature, but the colonial project that we live within seeks to dominate and decimate the natural world, rather than respect its rhythms. The climate crisis we are in is because of the massive abuse of resources corporations have been able to get away with. And war. The greed of a very few swallows up the life of all of us en masse, eventually. It’s a trap that we know we are all ensnared in, and moments like these give us a glimpse of the future we don’t want. A future that is sure to come if we don’t learn from these lessons, if we don’t grieve and turn that grief into action.
We can do everything possible to save everything possible. And everything we save reclaims a world of possibilities. If major astrological events in Cancer teach us anything, it’s that care is our greatest currency.
This next week brings us a very different, but equally ominous signature: a Pluto–Sun conjunction in Aquarius. Happening on January 21st, it is the first of its kind in this sign in 248 years or so. It’s a mark of a new era that unfortunately aligns with the inauguration of a president that has promised us his vision of plutocracy.
I have a lot of thoughts about this signature and this moment — how bleak it looks, how heavy, how extreme and all-consuming, and how weird the tech battles will become. But I want to leave us with this: If we are talking about Pluto in Aquarius, we have to center the fact that, collectively, we are more powerful than they could ever be. We know this, but we need to act on it. Every day, all day. With or without reward. If this is the dawning of a new era, let it be one that brings us total clarity about what we can change and all that we can save.
Never miss a memo.
Sign up for our newsletter and get Chani’s letters in your inbox.
Looking for more intel? Read your daily horoscope:
Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra
Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces
Then download the CHANI app on iOS or Android for additional horoscopes, meditations, affirmations, readings for the current Moon phase and sign, and more.
The post In Chani’s words | January 15th, 2025: Processing crisis amid Mars retrograde and the Full Moon in Cancer appeared first on Chani Nicholas.
I can’t stop crying. None of us can. Oceans of grief roll through for a multitude of reasons at any given time. It’s hard to think, plan, or construct a full sentence. The greater Los Angeles area is still in an acute crisis as I write this. The winds are not through with us, the
The post In Chani’s words | January 15th, 2025: Processing crisis amid Mars retrograde and the Full Moon in Cancer appeared first on Chani Nicholas.
I can’t stop crying. None of us can. Oceans of grief roll through for a multitude of reasons at any given time. It’s hard to think, plan, or construct a full sentence. The greater Los Angeles area is still in an acute crisis as I write this. The winds are not through with us, the lack of rain looms, and the electric current of fear that more untold devastation may be around the corner is palpable.
Whole neighborhoods have been wiped out. Altadena, a historic Black community birthed in the Civil Rights Movement, is gone; the Palisades and Pacific Coast Highway charred; wildlife terrorized; and ecosystems decimated. There are toxins in our air that will do god-knows-what to our bodies, our babies, our food, our earth, and our communal health.
If there’s one thing that becomes clear in these moments, it’s how much we need each other. The way I’ve hung onto each and every word that anyone around me says, desperate to know what other people are feeling and thinking and deciding and processing. Who lost what? How many? Who needs a home? Where did they go? They lost everything? They don’t know yet? Who else do I need to text, call, leave a voice memo for? It’s a trauma response to be sure, but it feels like ancient technology embedded deeply within us. Reach out. Stay in touch. Check in. Community is how we survive this. Caring for one another is how we discover the best of ourselves — it is the meaning of our lives. The greatest purpose we could ever live into.
We need us. Especially because we are completely unprepared for the repercussions of climate collapse. We are in the middle of one of the worst disasters known to this city of angels, and we are amid the inauguration of the next President of the United States who is (among so many other exceptionally challenging things) a climate-change denier. About to take the throne is a man who has sworn to open the floodgates for even more capitalist, colonial, corporate violence to occur.
The current villains of our story are unmasked and unashamed, proud of the profits they’ll reap from our losses.
Months ago, when I originally looked at the astrology of January, I grimaced. Packed with signatures that read as relentless challenges, the opening monologue of 2025 was not one I was looking forward to. Especially knowing the results of the US election.
The month began with a Mars–Pluto opposition on January 2nd. This is the mark of something grueling, cruel, harsh, ruthless, volcanic, extreme, and scarring. It’s also a mark of major power plays. It coincided with a week of extreme violence in New Orleans, New York, and Las Vegas here in the United States, as well as Trump’s claims that Canada should become the 51st state, that Greenland and Panama should be under American control, and that he wouldn’t rule out using military force to make that happen.
On January 6th, Mars retrograded back into Cancer (the sign it has an extraordinarily difficult time in), signaling a sticky situation that would take months to clear up (it will be retrograde here until the end of February). In Cancer, Mars brings up issues of security, family, and home.
Home.
It was, of course, on January 7th that the fires in Los Angeles began. The Palisades and Eaton fires, among the largest, immediately evacuated thousands, destroying street after street of our community’s homes. Decades of memories, proof of lineages, lives up in smoke. And we are still counting losses, readying ourselves for whatever is next. Praying for rain.
The Full Moon in Cancer that sat with Mars retrograde (still within orb of the opposition to Pluto) on January 13th magnified difficult themes about home and family. From a distance and the “comfort” of my vantage point in 2024, this Full Moon looked painful because Mars so often aligns with times wreaked with havoc — worse in a sign it doesn’t do well in, and more devastatingly so when retrograde. Cancer is a sign that knows how to activate our most primal emotions, has us swimming in the depths of our feelings, and makes us want to curl up in the fetal position and cry for mom.
It was clear that the middle of the month would hurt.
But this pain that we are in, the extreme loss we are experiencing, is at least in part man-made. Not to say that fires aren’t part of the cycles of nature, but the colonial project that we live within seeks to dominate and decimate the natural world, rather than respect its rhythms. The climate crisis we are in is because of the massive abuse of resources corporations have been able to get away with. And war. The greed of a very few swallows up the life of all of us en masse, eventually. It’s a trap that we know we are all ensnared in, and moments like these give us a glimpse of the future we don’t want. A future that is sure to come if we don’t learn from these lessons, if we don’t grieve and turn that grief into action.
We can do everything possible to save everything possible. And everything we save reclaims a world of possibilities. If major astrological events in Cancer teach us anything, it’s that care is our greatest currency.
This next week brings us a very different, but equally ominous signature: a Pluto–Sun conjunction in Aquarius. Happening on January 21st, it is the first of its kind in this sign in 248 years or so. It’s a mark of a new era that unfortunately aligns with the inauguration of a president that has promised us his vision of plutocracy.
I have a lot of thoughts about this signature and this moment — how bleak it looks, how heavy, how extreme and all-consuming, and how weird the tech battles will become. But I want to leave us with this: If we are talking about Pluto in Aquarius, we have to center the fact that, collectively, we are more powerful than they could ever be. We know this, but we need to act on it. Every day, all day. With or without reward. If this is the dawning of a new era, let it be one that brings us total clarity about what we can change and all that we can save.
Never miss a memo.
Sign up for our newsletter and get Chani’s letters in your inbox.
Looking for more intel? Read your daily horoscope:
Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra
Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces
Then download the CHANI app on iOS or Android for additional horoscopes, meditations, affirmations, readings for the current Moon phase and sign, and more.
Discover more from World Byte News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
