Important things: Meet the Woman Bringing Social Justice to Astrology

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Chani Nicholas doesn’t care for the hulking Alex Katz painting, depicting a trio of suited white men, hanging behind the front desk of the Langham hotel in New York. It reminds her of the patriarchy, she tells me one rainy, starless night in February, as we take the elevator up to her hotel suite and sit on the couch. We’re wrapping up a conversation about privilege, gender equality and the zodiac when Nicholas, who’s become popular on Instagram as a kind of social-justice astrologer, notices a different art piece hovering behind her. This one, she likes. The painting, titled “Mona,” portrays a woman who shares a striking resemblance to Nicholas – dark hair with tight curls, sharp brown eyes, a strong jawline. She compares it to the painting in the lobby. “The hotel staff must’ve known not to put me in a room with a bunch of weird guys on the wall,” she says. “I’m basically an angry feminist who just happens to be into astrology and healing.”

Nicholas, 42, is transforming horoscopes from generalizations about finding true love and stumbling into financial good fortune to pointed calls to action with a left-leaning, social-justice agenda. Based in Los Angeles, she has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and a blog with as many as one million monthly readers. She weaves activism into the majority of her writing, appealing to a generation particularly interested in issues like racism, sexism and gun control.

Nicholas used last November’s mercury retrograde to urge her followers to contact the FCC prior to its vote on net neutrality. She wrote about the new moon in Scorpio representing the need to heal during the initial wave of sexual assault accusations in Hollywood. She’s posted about DACA and the border wall and has even been promoting an online tool called FreeFrom, which was started by her wife Sonya Passi to help victims of domestic violence understand how to pursue financial compensation. In fact, last October, Nicholas raised $40 thousand for FreeFrom by offering her followers a chance to win one of five free astrology readings, with the majority of people donating just $5 to $10. “I love that we can use my platform to create wealth and work for folks that need access,” Nicholas says.

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