Pirts day
The time shifts the planetary hours and the lunar-day boundary; the sun and phase readings stay day-based.
Waning moon 34% 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 bear
Waking and transformation; the forces of nature stir and favour creation. In Latvian sources the Bear is linked with the ancestors and with the constellation of the Great Bear.
- + Laying foundations for a home and for long projects
- + Strength exercises, yoga, healing
- + A tantric day; good for conceiving
- − Apathy and hopelessness
- − Casual liaisons
- − Operations on varicose veins and eyes
- Symbol
- a bear, a mountain
- Body
- the external genitals
- Stones
- black jasper, morion, malachite
Health — a divinatory system, not medicine
A frail nervous system and circulation; the legs and eyes were to be watched; operations on varicose veins, the ankles and the eyes were not allowed. Illness passes without consequence.
Moon in Virgo earth
Order, detail, health, work. The best sign for cleaning, setting things straight, treatment, and anything that calls for precision. The risk is excess criticism of yourself and others.
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 systemTuesday · Mars ♂︎. Action, sport, conflict, surgery. There is much energy and it wants an outlet: physical effort, repairs, the garden, casting off surplus. Whoever lies idle on their side today feels poorly by evening. A good day to stand your ground and to finish what needs pressure. A poor one for delicate talks and matters of love. The shadow side is quarrels, haste, injury.
Current planetary hour: ♂︎ Mars — hour 5 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: Miķeļi
Next: Mārtiņi, in 5 days
91% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♏︎ in Scorpio, 10.9° water
- Day of the solar month
- day 11
- Next turning point
- the winter solstice, in 49 days
- Day length
- 9.0 h · sunrise 07:38 · sunset 16:35
The sun's passage through Scorpio was felt as the cold taking real hold — warmth withdrew inward, and the body was said to conserve rather than spend. Old lore treated this as a season for going quiet, for keeping close what mattered, not for open display. Illness caught now was thought to run deeper and linger longer than at other turns of the year.
The day, read as one
The day's four voices largely agreed on the pirts itself: the waning moon and its Latvian counterpart both called this a stretch for cleansing and casting off surplus, Moon in Virgo sharpened that into a favour for treatment and setting things straight, and Mars' Tuesday supplied the energy to actually finish what was started rather than lying idle. The lunar day of the Bear added a caution rather than a contradiction — the legs, ankles and eyes were to be treated gently, and any operation on the varicose veins or eyes was best left for another time. Sun in Scorpio struck a quieter note underneath it all, suggesting warmth was better kept inward than spent freely, which sat well enough with a pirts visit but less well with excess or display. Taken together, tradition pointed toward a day suited to a cleansing, orderly pirts taken with some physical vigor, so long as it stayed short of strain on the legs or eyes and didn't tip into the quarrelsome haste Mars could bring.
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.