Pirts day
The time shifts the planetary hours and the lunar-day boundary; the sun and phase readings stay day-based.
Waning moon 18% illuminated
The waning moon was long held as the best time for a pirts visit. This was when cleansing and letting go were most encouraged — heavier whisking and a longer, more thorough visit were favoured.
The toad in the marsh
One of the more perilous days — not satanic but critical. A misleading enchantment with one's own achievements is the risk; energy was said to drain out through the mouth.
- + Silence, rest, fasting
- + Considered, unhurried work
- + Pirts and massage
- − Chatter, vanity, haste
- − Starting anything — you sink into the marsh
- − Swimming, pulling teeth
- Symbol
- a toad, a marsh
- Body
- the hips, the thighs
- Stones
- orpiment, blue nephrite
Health — a divinatory system, not medicine
The hips and thighs. Hip-joint injuries taken on this day were considered especially serious. Illness was thought dangerous.
Moon in Cancer water
Home, family, memory, the sense of roots. Sensitivity is high, hurt runs deep and lasts. A good time to be at home, to cook, to care for your own; a poor time for public confrontation.
Latvian folk tradition
a separate layer · by moon phase, not by numbered day- On the waning moon — pirts, water treatments, casting off the surplus.
- Trees felled on the old moon rot less.
Source: Pēteris Šmits, Latviešu tautas ticējumi. Not the numbered-day corpus above.
Planetary week
a third, independent systemMonday · Moon ☾︎. Mood, home, memory, family. Sensitivity is higher than usual — toward people and toward food. A good day for housework, for caring for a mother and elders, for water treatments, for anything that calls for gentleness. A poor day for important decisions and public steps: plans tend to change. The shadow side is emotional unsteadiness and taking offence.
Current planetary hour: ♂︎ Mars — hour 4 of the day.
Leadership, struggle, conflict, surgery. Much energy, and it wants an outlet — physical work, sport, a decisive conversation, casting off surplus. The shadow side: irritability, haste, injury, burnt bridges.
The year wheel
Last: Māras
Next: Miķeļi, in 16 days
66% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♍︎ in Virgo, 14.7° earth
- Day of the solar month
- day 16
- Next turning point
- the autumn equinox, in 16 days
- Day length
- 13.4 h · sunrise 06:37 · sunset 20:04
The sun in Virgo watched over the harvest, and the body was expected to keep pace with it — steady, careful work rather than a burst of effort. The warmth was already turning thin at the edges, so tradition favoured finishing tasks over starting new ones. A tired body was read as a sign to gather in, not to push on.
The day, read as one
The waning moon, the folk tradition tied to it, the lunar day itself, and the solar season in Virgo were unusually of one mind: this was a day for pirts read as release rather than beginning, for quiet, careful attention rather than fresh undertakings. Cancer and Monday's planetary mood layered on a further note of tenderness and home-feeling, sensitivity running higher than usual and best spent gently rather than in argument or decision. The lunar day's own warning stood apart and mattered most — a caution against vanity and hurry, against mistaking today's small achievements for more than they were, with the hips named as the vulnerable point and any illness taken more seriously than usual. Taken together, a pirts visit sat well with the day, so long as it was unhurried, quiet, and free of any wish to prove something.
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.