The Weekly Nerd
April 26-May 02 2026
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Transits of the Week
04/26 Venus sextile Neptune 10:43 AM MST
This is a pleasant transit that could have you enjoying time out with friends or a partner. Just a little bit of planning could make this time almost ideal.
04/26 Mercury square Jupiter 11:33 AM MST
This transit sets up conflict between reason and faith, or thinking small versus thinking big. You might be struggling with which planet you want to lead you. Logic and reason (Mercury)? Or irrationality and faith?
04/28 Venus trine Pluto 09:40 AM MST
This is also a very nice transit. It sets up an intense love experience. If other factors back this up, you could fall in love at this time. You could be a bit obsessed with the other person, but the trine doesn't tend to cause the problems that the square and opposition do.
05/01 Venus sextile Saturn 11:45 AM MST
This transit can strengthen new or existing relationships. Saturn adds stability to the pairing. It isn't as exciting as Venus trine Pluto or Mars, but it does help to settle relationships into something more permanent.
Weekly Article: Ethics in Astrology. What to Tell the Client & What to Hold Back
I have a client staring back at me on a Zoom call. I see tough times ahead in their chart. They're not going to like this. What do I tell them? The ugly truth? Or do I minimize the bad, make it seem nicer than what I really see? What would be the ethical thing to do? Are there some things astrologers should never tell their clients? Where is the line? Is there one? Can you go too far in a reading? Or is there no such thing?
These are all difficult questions every astrologer eventually faces. Think of the power we have? We've read their chart. We know so much about them. We can see what's coming, at least the general trend if not specific events. As I learned from Spider-Man, "With great power comes great responsibility." I have great power as an astrologer, and so my responsibility to my client is equally great.
Setting aside all the knowledge I've gleaned from the client's chart, consider the inherent power imbalance. If someone has come to see me for a reading, chances are pretty good that they're not a skeptic of astrology. They probably already accept it as true, or at least have an open mind.
This very likely means that the client sees me as an authority figure, similar to how we see our doctors as we're sitting in that little exam room. I am the one with all the knowledge and all the experience. They are inclined to take what I say as the gospel truth. Some will question my interpretations, but many won't. "Well, that's what the astrologer says," they might reason. "They would know."
This power imbalance is already a potential source of unethical behavior. After all, we could encourage this. We could see ourselves as infallible as the client sees us. We could place ourselves on a pedestal above the client, simply because we're the ones giving the information and they're the one receiving it. Think of what this could do to a client. It could create dependency and blind adherence to whatever the astrologer says.
Therefore, I think the first ethical thing an astrologer must do is to bring themselves down to the level of the client. Yes, it's true that I'm an "authority" in the sense of having the knowledge and experience of astrology that the client probably doesn't. But I'm not infallible. I make mistakes. I sometimes miss things. There are so many layers to a horoscope that it's easy to overlook something.
Make sure the client understands this. They should not take everything you see as the Truth with a capital T. Though many see astrologers as similar to psychics, we're really much more like weather forecasters, except that our forecasting involves the planets rather than air currents.
To further knock myself off of any kind of pedestal, I think of the client as a participant. The two of us work together to interpret the chart. I ask the client a lot of questions to find out where they are in life and what challenges they're dealing with at the time of the reading. I'm not there to put on a performance. It is not my goal to tell them things they already know so they can so "Wow, how could you know that?" If it's oohs and ahs you want, be a magician. If you're really good, you'll get lots of those. Only become an astrologer if you sincerely desire to help people.
Okay, so what about more specific questions? What if a client asks when they're going to die, or if a sick relative will die soon? What do you do with that? I choose not to answer that questions for three reasons.
First, I don't know how to predict death. From what I have read, planets like Saturn and Pluto are less likely to be prominent at the time of death than Jupiter and Venus. This suggests that death is not a bad thing, not something to fear. So it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to predict death because I would be more likely to see Venus and Jupiter transits as indicative of healing rather than death. Just as I don't do synastry (comparing charts for compatibility) because I don't know much about it, so too would I not predict death because it's venturing into parts of astrology where I am not fully competent.
Second, the chart continues on after death. It's not as if there's this magic line that is crossed at some point that means the end of the chart. It doesn't work like that. As one astrologer put it (and I unfortunately don't know who to credit this to), "It's not so much that a person has a horoscope, but that a horoscope has a person."
Have you ever seen a famous dead person have a moment, a comeback, a time when they're suddenly cool again? That happened in the mid-80s with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There was a song, a movie, and suddenly everything Mozart was cool. When this happens, you can be sure that something is going on in their chart that would indicate that. Again, just because the person is dead doesn't mean the chart dies too. It continues on and on into perpetuity.
Finally, and most importantly, death is a very emotional topic. You can literally scare people to death by making them think they're going to die. This is backed by science. The mind-body connection is so much stronger than we know. So, why give a client that kind of stress? I want to make people feel better about their future, not worse.
My approach to astrology is to use it as a spiritual tool. We all have difficult times come into our lives. It's inevitable. If you are alive, bad things will happen sometimes. It's a part of life that you can't get away from. The trick is to figure out what the bad times mean. They're not coming at you randomly. The what and when of what's happening is there for a reason. What's the reason? And what can you do about it? A difficult transit is always a call to action.
We humans are very stubborn. We get stuck in our ways. We cling to the familiar, the comfortable, to that which we feel is "safe". This isn't a good thing. If you keep living like that, you get nowhere. That's what the challenging transits are for. We might feel like bad times are there to punish us or f#ck us over, but this is not true.
Uranus transits, for example, are there to pull the proverbial rug out from under us. Uranus says, "Fine, you won't change? Okay, I'll force the matter then. Now you have no choice." This feels very disruptive and incredibly uncomfortable. But it is necessary because in the long run it will turn out to be one of the best things that ever happened to you.
Saturn takes away from us things, situations, people that no longer serve us. It cuts the dead weight, the things that are holding us back. If we're unwilling to do that for ourselves, Saturn transits come along and do it for us. If that thing, job, relationship, or whatever is weighing you down and keeping you from moving forward, away it goes. Think of Saturn's scythe cutting the cords holding all those things no longer serving you and letting them fall away. Ouch. It's always painful. But also always necessary.
The way I choose to do readings is to give the client hope. Okay, yes, this challenging transit is coming. Here are some possibilities of what it might bring. Here's why it's ultimately a good thing. Here are some strategies you can use to help make it less painful. Here's what I think this transit is probably trying to teach you.
I don't want to leave the client depressed about their future. I want to leave them ready for their future, ready and optimistic that they can handle it, ready to go out there and kick life's ass.
Celebrity Birthdays
April 26 - Channing Tatum (46)
Actor known for Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street
April 27 - Lizzo (38)
Grammy-winning artist known for blending pop, hip-hop, and soul
April 28 - Penelope Cruz (52)
Oscar-winning actress
April 29 - Uma Thurman (56)
Iconic for roles in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill
April 30 - Gal Godot (39)
Known for being Wonder Woman
May 1 - Jamie Dornan (44)
Actor widely known for Fifty Shades of Grey
May 2 - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (54)
Known as a wrestler and film actor
Recommended Astrology Book of the Week
The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need - Joanna Martine Woolfolk
I wouldn't take the title too literally, but it is a very comprehensive beginners astrology book. The author goes through each of the planets in the signs and houses, discusses aspects, and covers things that most introductory astrology books don't touch, like decants and the precession of the equinoxes. Highly recommend for those just getting into astrology
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And that’s the end of The Weekly Nerd for this week. I hope you enjoyed it. Watch your inbox next Sunday for another one.
Have a wonderful week! And if no one has told you yet today, you are important and the world needs you.
Bye for now.
Shea (The Astrology Nerd)
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This publication may be shared but not sold or altered in any way. Written by Shea Ballard. Photos from Canva or Pixabay.
