Body Astrology: A Cosmic Guide to Health, Healing, and Harnessing the Power of the Planets by Claire Gallagher

Body Astrology: A Cosmic Guide to Health, Healing, and Harnessing the Power of the Planets Reviews

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  Avory Faucette

  I find medical astrology fascinating and intimidating. The body grounds my practice of intuitive embodied natal astrology, but dense medical astrology language makes me scratch my head.
  
  Contrast with Claire Gallagher’s Body Astrology, an accessible modern guide that opens up the discipline for beginners and astrologers alike. Gallagher’s approach centralizes simple techniques, empowering the reader and their body intuition while also emphasizing healing from harmful cultural diet/exercise stories.
  
  This style feels rooted in HAES, body positivity, and disability justice. The holistic lens prioritizes emotions, narratives, self-talk, and other sign aspects that might influence eating or movement beyond traditional medical associations. Specific suggestions for eating, movement, and health challenges by sign and planet aren’t deterministic or culturally specific. Gallagher warns readers against considering ideas hard rules, and unlike astrology “cookbooks” encourages nuanced personal interpretation supported by a scaffold approach rooting the reader in simple, broadly applicable fundamentals.
  
  Beginners can jump right into eating and moving seasonally and with moon phases before reading about specific zodiac signs. These cyclical practices emphasize a spiralic, non-linear sense of growth that is incredibly healing. Gallagher presents the sky as a mirror that affirms and uncovers embodied experience rather than dictating, contributing to an exciting trend of decentralizing astrological knowledge.
  
  I’d advise readers to use notes and sketch a general personal health picture from what they read. There’s a lot here, tough to integrate out of context, and some information will be more relevant to reference when specific issues arise. Given how personal and interpretive this practice is, I wanted more case studies or hypotheticals to assist in synthesizing techniques. But I’d still recommend the book highly for newbies as well as astrologers who are curious about how familiar techniques relate to health.
  
  [ARC provided through NetGalley.]
• 
  Jade Geary

  Honestly a fascinating book but over my head.
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  Joni Owens

  Super informative. This definitely isn’t a just look up your sign and read that. This is a read cover to cover and find out about it all. Really interesting read.
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  Cath T

  A great exploration into body astrology.
  
  This is a really good beginner guide into body astrology. It's informative without being too much/overwhelming for someone just getting into the subject. Even if you have a basic understanding of astrology this is really easy to follow and interpret. Personally related to a lot of topics regarding Libra sun health and eating habits. I also read some excerpts to friends about their signs, and they confirmed a lot of the same information. Although not everything will be accurate to everyone, it's still an interesting and informative read.
  
  I really liked the personal anecdotes Gallegher added about herself and her family, it made the book a little more personal than other astrology books I've read that comes across as more textbook-esc.
  
  Slight trigger warning for ED talk and themes. If you're struggling this might not be for you because there are discussions of dieting, eating, and exercise habits. Nothing about weight. So I think if that's something you're worried about, read with caution. I didn't find any triggers for myself.
  
  All in all, this is a better than average astrology guide. Even if this doesn't interest you, it still adds great points about different and healthy eating habits, as well as eating environments that we may not think of on a day to day.
  
  Thank you to Netgally for providing me with this arc, these are my own thoughts and opinions.
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  Jillian

  i skimmed some parts of this and while i'd call myself an astrology-adjacent lady i'm not an astrology lady so i will refrain from a rating. western medicine is great at some things and absolute garbage at others and i think that this also applies to the helpful to benign alternative modalities. personally i think astrology is best used as a form of self reflection and using it to do that for your physical health is kind of cool. i'm not about to go get a chart with transits done to map this out myself but some of the stuff in this book hits (looking at the self reflection like 😠), the author isn't fatphobic which is not often the case in the alt wellness world, nothing i read was scientifically garbage, and honestly a lot of what she talks about boils down to being more in tune with your body, finding things that work for you that aren't the latest wellness fad, and breaking out of the mindset of treating yourself like a lil machine.
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  Katrina

  "Body Astrology", by Claire Gallagher Is a fascinating way to look at astrology as it relates to ones health. I have found the same theory in herbs with a persons different constitutions hot,dry,wet. I have gained so much from this book I had to buy a copy for future reference. The author has a wonderful teaching approach that anyone can learn from. I found the ideas in this book enhanced my self care by allowing me another aspect of monitoring my health and identifying and treating my body, my way. Excellent book! #BodyAstrology #NetGalley
• 
  Rachel

  So interesting!!
  First, this book is just a gorgeous one to look at - pretty colors and great illustrations throughout.
  The author has packed this book with information from her years of experience. I see this book having a permanent space on my shelves and being read multiple times as I practice "harnessing the power of the planets!"
  
  
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  Jul

  I have a fairly high degree of astrology knowledge, but this book was a little above my head. 5 stars nevertheless, it's not the book's fault! The author provides tips for starting slow and easing into it if the information seems like too much. This book is meant to be an encyclopedia, visited over and over again, which is how I'll use it. It's also a physically beautiful book to have out.
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  Alexandria Eisa

  I'm surprised to see this book is not more popular! I really appreciated the kind, empathetic, judgement-free approach to caring for the body. I've noticed myself gravitating toward healthier food choices and more compassionate self-talk naturally and effortlessly.
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  Arlene Mullen

  I think this book was very interesting. I don't know much about astrology, outside the basics. Taking the time to learn about how the star charts affect you body. Then learning how different foods at different times of years can help you body. I'll definitely introduce some of these things into my daily life.