Pirts day
Every layer is read at this time; sunrise and sunset are the chosen day's.
Waning moon 12% 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 trident
The day of Neptune. The day holds the memory of all the lunar days before it and passes knowledge on through intuition. The lesson: pray for the world, not for yourself.
- + Meditation, healing, prayer
- + Water treatments, travel by water
- + Sowing and planting; repaying debts
- − Alcohol, a mirror, illusions
- − Open fire
- − Praying only for yourself
- Symbol
- a staff, a trident
- Body
- the lower legs, the calves
- Stones
- red coral, amethyst, charoite
Health — a divinatory system, not medicine
The lower legs and calves; breaking the day over a long stretch was linked to thrombophlebitis and lymphatic complaints. Illnesses light and short.
Moon in Scorpio water
Depth, secrecy, passion, transformation. A strong sign for cleansing, investigation, and shedding the surplus. At the same time — jealousy, suspicion, the pull toward revenge.
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 systemFriday · Venus ♀︎. Relationships, beauty, pleasure, art, peace. A good day to meet, to reconcile, to tend to yourself, to shop for beauty, to make and to enjoy. Agreements reached on a Friday tend to hold, because they rest on liking rather than pressure. A poor day for rough work and confrontation. The shadow side is idleness, indulgence, waste.
Current planetary hour: Mars ♂︎ — hour 2 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: Ziemassvētki
Next: Meteņi, in 42 days
5% through this eighth of the year
The sun
- Sign
- ♑︎ in Capricorn, 2.3° earth
- Day of the solar month
- day 3
- Next turning point
- the spring equinox, in 87 days
- Day length
- 6.7 h · sunrise 09:01 · sunset 15:44
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
Several threads agreed on the shape of this day: the lunar corpus named it a day of water and quiet intuition rather than fire or vanity, the waning moon and its Latvian counterpart both called for release and the shedding of surplus, and Scorpio deepened that same pull toward cleansing, if shadowed by a warning against brooding or suspicion. Friday's Venus sat a little apart, favouring ease, company, and tending to oneself rather than hard or confrontational work — a gentler note that still left room for a pirts taken for pleasure as much as for release. Capricorn's sun, low and hard-won, asked for endurance rather than comfort, suggesting any warmth be met gratefully rather than indulged. Together these pointed toward a pirts day of washing away rather than adding on — unhurried, inward, and free of mirrors or open flame, with sociable warmth welcome but excess and old grievances best left outside the door.
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.