Pirts day
The time shifts the planetary hours and the lunar-day boundary; the sun and phase readings stay day-based.
Waxing moon 45% illuminated
As the moon waxed, strength was thought to be building. A pirts visit in this phase was taken more for enjoyment and vitality than for deep cleansing — a good time for warmth and company.
The phoenix
Cleansing and repentance. The characteristic practice was cleansing by fire, from a bonfire down to a single candle.
- + Fasting, cleansing the gut
- + Preparing herbal remedies
- + Travelling, moving house
- − Indulgence, egotism
- − Carelessness near water
- − A poor day to fall ill
- Symbol
- a phoenix, a casket of jewels
- Body
- the stomach
- Stones
- garnet, chrysolite, morion
Health — a divinatory system, not medicine
A diagnosis was said to be hard to make today, and illness could drag on — a poor day to fall ill.
Moon in Aries fire
Short, sharp tasks that need a flare of energy but not a long stretch of it. Bold decisions, new beginnings, risky ones included. The other side is a quick temper: patience with those close to you was advised today, because a quarrel starts easily.
Latvian folk tradition
a separate layer · by moon phase, not by numbered day- What is sown on the old moon does not grow; on the new moon it grows “twisting upward.”
- This is the time of planting and gathering.
Source: Pēteris Šmits, Latviešu tautas ticējumi. Not the numbered-day corpus above.
Planetary week
a third, independent systemSaturday · Saturn ♄︎. Limits, discipline, ordering, closing off. Slowness is an advantage here: a day for what needs patience, repetition and clearing out — archives, debts, repairs, fasting, casting off the old. Anything where you must say “no” goes well. New beginnings and celebrations go poorly. The shadow side is heaviness of heart, meanness, and fear.
Current planetary hour: ☉︎ Sun — hour 4 of the day.
Strength, health, visibility, authority. The hour for showing yourself: speaking up, addressing someone higher, starting what needs to be noticed. Quiet requests and work where you must stay in the shadow go poorly.
The year wheel
Last: Ziemassvētki
Next: Meteņi, in 39 days
13% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♑︎ in Capricorn, 5.9° earth
- Day of the solar month
- day 6
- Next turning point
- the spring equinox, in 84 days
- Day length
- 6.8 h · sunrise 09:01 · sunset 15:47
The sun turned at its lowest in Capricorn, and the shortest day was kept as the year's true hinge — the cold was at its hardest, but so, tradition insisted, was the promise that light was about to grow again. Endurance, not comfort, was the virtue of this season; a fire lit now was lit in hope rather than in need alone. The body was told to bear with the cold rather than fight it.
The day, read as one
The day's threads largely agreed on restraint over revelry: the lunar corpus called for fasting and cleansing by fire, Saturday's discipline favoured closing off and casting out the old, and Capricorn's sun asked for endurance rather than comfort — three traditions converging on a quiet, stripped-back pirts rather than an indulgent one. The waxing moon pulled the other way, favouring gathering and beginnings and better uptake of herbal remedies, which sat a little uneasily against the day's otherwise ascetic mood. Moon in Aries added a note of quick energy and quicker temper, suiting a short visit rather than a long, leisurely one, while patience with companions was advised. Both the numbered day and the planetary week warned against carelessness and new ventures, and the lunar corpus specifically marked this a poor day to fall ill, illness being hard to diagnose and slow to pass. Taken together, tradition leaned toward a brief, disciplined pirts of cleansing rather than comfort, with little support across the readings for anything indulgent or drawn out.
Generated with Claude · cached for this day and updated when the corpus changes
Your lunar birth day
computed on your device · only the day (1–30) is used, never the dateThis is folk and divinatory material, not health advice. It is written in the past tense on purpose — "was avoided", "was considered" — and describes what tradition held, not what you should do. A pirts visit is a real load on the heart and circulation; judge heat, duration and frequency for your own body.