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The CHANI App is a popular astrology app that offers daily readings and in-depth information on signs, transits, and current astrological shifts. Chani Nicholas, the person behind it, has been on the astrology scene for more than twenty years, steadily building a following through writing, social media posts, and a YouTube channel. Nicholas also recently discussed her less mysticism, more emotional literacy, timing, and self-awareness approach to astrology in an in-depth interview on “On Purpose with Jay Shetty”. Her approach, encouraging the use of astrology as a guide, carries through to the CHANI App.
The app experience centers on carefully translating astrology terminology into clear, relatable, bite-sized pieces. Astrological conditions are introduced as influences rather than predictions, and when high emotions are likely in play, they’re named without drama.
Daily and Weekly Readings
Nicholas relies on rising signs as the primary element of individualized readings. Daily horoscopes reference your birth chart, and the focus stays on internal movement, emotional currents, and recurring themes. Reading a daily entry feels complete in itself, and also fits within a weekly roundup. The app works equally as well when engagement ebbs and flows.
Weekly horoscopes widen the scope. As themes develop gradually across several days, ideas surface, recede, and return. This repetition is intentional and cumulative, meaning it builds through recognition. This calm approach distinguishes the app from more headline-driven astrology platforms.
Depth Beyond the Horoscope
The birth chart section is where the app offers its greatest depth. Planetary placements, houses, and aspects are explained in a simple, clear format. Interpretations avoid defining personality and instead acknowledge growth and change across a lifespan. The chart serves as a reference point and encourages readers to return to it at different life stages to read it differently.
Audio content supplements the written material and feels like a friend is explaining the movie you just watched together. Guided reflections and short grounding practices are designed as pauses, and are delivered at a calm, unhurried pace. Similarly, rituals and journal prompts are presented as invitations rather than assignments. There is no tracking or progress indicator, and no performative element to completing any of it.
Design, Access, and Fit
The app interface is uncluttered and navigationally intuitive, with a subdued color palette that reinforces its disdain for shock-style astrology. The slightly offbeat visuals, which carry through to the whole merchandise line, including books and cards, keep attention focused on the text. Nothing about the design suggests optimization for habitual engagement or dopamine-driven interaction.
The free version provides enough access to understand the app’s goals and style, including daily horoscopes and limited chart insights. The subscription unlocks additional depth and functionality, with a wealth of information and its related explanation available. It doesn’t promise clarity or certainty, and it often suggests users note patterns over time.
Of course, this app will not suit everyone. People seeking predictions or clear, set-in-stone answers may find the experience too understated or not gamified enough. The CHANI App has a coherent voice, design, and structure that reinforce the same message. The value becomes clearer with regular use, though occasional check-ins still feel worthwhile.
For those already familiar with Chani Nicholas’ work, the app provides a focused and well-organized home for what they value in her writing. For new users drawn to astrology as a reflective practice rather than a predictive one, it offers a thoughtful and consistent entry point. My subscription is on auto-renew.
Means, motive and opportunity are the usual lenses that we use to examine crimes. In Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, tragedy is explored through the impact of wealth, station and traditional gender roles. Ping ponging between the 1950s, 1961 and 1975, the story details the separate disappearances of two children belonging to the Van Laar family from Camp Emerson – a beautiful, wooded site in the Adirondacks. The first child, nicknamed “Bear”, vanishes during the 1961 end of summer annual “Blackfly Goodbye” – a decadent weeklong party to close out the season. The 9-year old’s grandfather said that they set out on a hike, but the boy went back for his jackknife and was never seen again. Bear’s parents have a second child, who the father insists they name Barbara, who is obstinate and oppositional. In 1975, when the book opens, she is missing from her bunk at camp – the second vanished Van Laar.
This novel provides vast opportunities to explore the role of wealth, class and family station on behavior. The Van Laars’ home at the camp bears the ironic name “Self-Reliance”. Intended to reference Ralph Waldo Emerson’s musings on the value of non-conformity, it is instead, the home base for the parents’ fight to maintain the status quo in all things. Rather than functioning independently, the family is wholly dependent on a large staff of locals who manage the estate and the camp. The entire enterprise is built by others and maintained by the work of town folk such as the Hewitt family. When Bear vanishes, suspicion is cast on a hired hand with devastating consequences to him and his relatives. The destructive impact of the Van Laar family’s behavior on these individuals is accepted as collateral damage.
For me, the most significant and interesting part of this work was the evolution of the roles of women and female characters across the span of the three decades of the story. Alice, the mother of the two missing children, is swallowed by the gender norms of the role she accepts. Marrying into a wealthy family, she subjugates any individuality to play her part well, adopting the clothes, mannerisms and suppression of opinions required of her. These expectations are communicated explicitly and leave her in a superficial flimsy existence that she copes with through alcohol. She is demonstrably unable to handle the challenges of life that confront her, including the death of her son.
Three other interesting female characters (Judyta, TJ and Barbara) represent different adaptations to second wave feminism. Barbara presents herself as an ungrateful, rebellious teenager, but is revealed to be searching for love and a positive female role model since her mother, though physically present, is emotionally absent. She finds it in TJ Hewitt, the fiercely independent camp director who wears androgynous clothes, has a steady job and is highly knowledgeable about the woods and survival. Some people suggest an inappropriate relationship between Barbara and the older woman. “I wouldn’t call it that. She just stays with me, makes sure I stay out of trouble. The Hewitts are like family.” TJ has carved out an unusual life for herself outside of mainstream society, but she owns it. “We can do as we please, if we only learn not to care so much about what people think.”
Judyta has tackled things differently. She is the first female investigator in Albany. Through her diligence, patience, intelligence and deliberate non-threatening approach, she slowly grows in confidence. Initially deferring to her male superiors, she earns respect and status. She is good at her job, and despite an instinct to be deferential, she pursues the truth. “Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.” Her family undermines her career choice at first, but when she refuses to abandon her goals, they ultimately express pride in her accomplishments. Her ascent is the hopeful note that acceptance of a new social order is possible.
There are many other things to focus on in this book – the role of relationships, secrets, education, grief, etc. But for me, the role of the women during this dawning age of feminism is of most interest. Liz Moore has created a credible world. The interactions between the rich family and their guests with the locals who depend on them for their livelihood is well crafted. The prose is lovely. Some of the characters feel incompletely drawn and I found the bouncing back and forth between times a bit jarring, but despite that, it was worth reading to see, among other things, how different characters broke free from their societal cages.
