Pirts day
The time shifts the planetary hours and the lunar-day boundary; the sun and phase readings stay day-based.
Waxing moon 25% 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 cockerel and the staff
The day of word-magic. Everything spoken takes effect — blessing, curse, and lies most of all. Prayers were said to be heard quickly.
- + Praying, using charms
- + Settling matters with institutions
- + Weeding out filler words
- − Lies, gossip, idle chatter
- − Breaking dishes, tearing paper
- − Pulling teeth — the worst day
- Symbol
- a cockerel, a wind rose
- Body
- the lungs
- Stones
- sapphire, white coral, heliotrope
Health — a divinatory system, not medicine
Easy to catch cold. The worst day for pulling teeth. Latvian sources allow a surgical operation if the other indicators are favourable.
Dreams
Prophetic and quick to come true. A fighting cock in a dream — a sign of imminent disaster.
Moon in Pisces water
Dreams, intuition, mercy, art. The border between yourself and others thins — it is easy to take on someone else's mood. A good time for meditation and music; a poor one for agreements and alcohol.
Canon: Russian sources: the worst day for pulling teeth; operations are not discussed.
epadomi.com: astromedicus (LV): a surgical operation is permissible if the other indicators are favourable.
epadomi.com is a divergent branch, shown for cross-checking — not the reference.
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 systemWednesday · Mercury ☿︎. Words, documents, roads, trade, talks. The best day of the week to sort papers, write letters, study, buy and sell, bring people together. The mind is quick but shallow, so large decisions are better left. The day calls for honesty and precision: what is said today is remembered. The shadow side is chatter, distraction, small lies.
Current planetary hour: ♄︎ Saturn — hour 4 of the day.
Limits, discipline, ordering, closing off. Slowness is an advantage here: archives, debts, repairs, fasting, casting off the old, anything where you must say “no.” A poor hour for beginnings and celebrations. The shadow side is heaviness of heart and fear.
The year wheel
Last: Ziemassvētki
Next: Meteņi, in 22 days
51% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♑︎ in Capricorn, 22.9° earth
- Day of the solar month
- day 23
- Next turning point
- the spring equinox, in 67 days
- Day length
- 7.3 h · sunrise 08:53 · sunset 16:11
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
Word-magic and Mercury's day pointed the same direction: the seventh lunar day named speech as the thing with power, and Wednesday agreed, calling for honesty and precision over chatter — together they made this a day when what was said in the warmth mattered, and idle complaint or gossip was better left at the door. The waxing moon and Latvian phase-lore favoured gathering and taking in rather than heavy exertion, though the lunar day's own health notes warned of catching cold easily and named this the worst day for anything surgical, tooth-pulling above all. The Moon in Pisces softened the mood further, thinning the border between one's own feelings and another's — good for quiet or music, less so for striking agreements. The Capricorn sun, low and hard, asked only for endurance rather than comfort, so a fire lit today was lit in patience. Taken together, the day suited a visit kept plain and unhurried, with truthful words and no great decisions made in the heat.
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.