Planetary Apothecary

In her book Planetary Apothecary, Seattle-based writer Stephanie Gailing combines her two loves – astrology and natural healing. The result is a small, useful encyclopedia of health ideas for body and soul. She’s a nutritionist, and knows just which foods are right for each Zodiac sign. Her suggestions are solid, from the digestive aid of bitter greens for Virgo, Cancer-fighting brassica vegetables (broccoli, cabbage cauliflower) for Cancer, buzzy green tea for Aquarians to name a few.

She has flower essence and aromatherapy choices, yoga poses, relaxation techniques and spa therapies for each sign. Gailing has taken the ancient wisdom of medical astrology, and brought it into the now age, with all that’s available to us. How about sonopuncture, Taurus? It’s the use of tuning forks to emit sound vibrations to stimulate the energy meridians of the body.

She’s paired superfoods and plant healers of nature, with the character issues that each sign deals with. She chooses Sage flower essence for Sagittarius, for times when farsightedness blinds the Archer to vital details. Try Sage flower essence, she writes, If you need some assistance probing your memory for nuances and subtleties that can yield a greater level of understanding.

In stressful times, it's easy to forget to do what makes us feel healthy. Planetary Apothecary is packed with inspiring ideas, from a writer that's in the know about emerging health innovations. She fuses astrology and healing, like the ancients, with a breadth of vision that's right for our times. In the intro, she writes that the planets and stars may seem far away, but what's gleaned from them makes them allies in health; …thanks to medical astrology, wellness is much closer than we think.

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