Pirts day
The time shifts the planetary hours and the lunar-day boundary; the sun and phase readings stay day-based.
Waning moon 16% 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 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 systemThursday · Jupiter ♃︎. Growth, learning, law, travel, generosity. A day for large questions: strategy, study, courts and institutions, long-term agreements, helping others. What is begun on a Thursday tends to grow. A good day to ask and to give — money included. The shadow side is exaggeration, promises beyond your strength, and the wish to teach others how to live.
Current planetary hour: ☿︎ Mercury — hour 4 of the day.
Words, documents, roads, trade, talks. The best hour to write, study, buy and sell, bring people together, sort papers. The mind is quick but shallow — a large decision is better not settled right now.
The year wheel
Last: Miķeļi
Next: Mārtiņi, in 3 days
95% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♏︎ in Scorpio, 12.9° water
- Day of the solar month
- day 13
- Next turning point
- the winter solstice, in 47 days
- Day length
- 8.8 h · sunrise 07:42 · sunset 16:31
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
Several strands agreed that this was a day for quiet withdrawal rather than display: the lunar day's caution against vanity and haste, the waning moon's pull toward release and cleansing, Virgo's call for order and careful attention, and Scorpio's inward-turning warmth all pointed the same direction, with pirts and rest named favourably by both the numbered day and the phase tradition. Thursday's planetary temper sat somewhat apart, its natural leaning toward growth, generosity, and large undertakings finding little room here, since the day itself warned against beginning anything new. Old lore was firm that illness or injury taken now — especially to the hips and thighs — was considered graver than usual and slower to mend, echoed by Scorpio's warning that ailments caught in its season ran deep. Taken together, the traditions leaned toward a subdued, cleansing pirts visit, unhurried and without ambition, rather than any new start or occasion for show.
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.