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 Sagittarius fire
The road, wide space, learning, faith. You are drawn to distance and to meaning. A good time to travel, to study, to plan in broad strokes. The risk is to promise more than you can carry out.
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: ♄︎ Saturn — hour 3 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 2 days
96% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♒︎ in Aquarius, 13.2° air
- Day of the solar month
- day 14
- Next turning point
- the spring equinox, in 47 days
- Day length
- 8.6 h · sunrise 08:21 · sunset 16:54
The sun in Aquarius still moved through the hardest cold, but the days were noticeably lengthening now, and tradition read this as a season of quiet waiting rather than action. People gathered close around fire and each other, since warmth from without was scarce and had to be shared to matter. The body was thought to want company now more than solitude.
The day, read as one
Lunar day 26 and the waning moon agreed closely: this was a day for release rather than beginning, and pirts itself was named favourably by both the numbered corpus and Latvian folk tradition, with quiet, unhurried bathing fitting the mood far better than anything energetic. Tuesday's Mars pulled the other way, wanting exertion and effort, which sat uneasily against the day's own warning to avoid haste and vanity and to let the mouth stay closed rather than drain one's energy in chatter. The moon in Sagittarius added a pull toward distance and broad thought, of little bearing on the pirts itself, while the sun in Aquarius favoured gathering in warmth and company over solitude. Taken together, the quieter, more inward reading of the day dominated: a slow, silent pirts suited the day's temper, while boasting of one's efforts, starting new undertakings, or forcing anything through was better left for another time.
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.