As we learned back on Day 256, each day of the week is ruled by a particular planetary influence. It’s easy to guess the correspondence of some days–for example, Sunday and Monday are ruled by the sun and moon respectively. However, the English names for the days of the week derive mostly from the names of Norse gods, but we’ve named the planets after Roman gods, so it does take some thought. Tuesday, for example, is named after the Norse god Tyr who was the god of victory, heroic glory, and single combat. This is most like the Roman god of war, Mars, so Mars is Tuesday’s planet. Mercury rules Wednesday–and it’s a lot easier to see why given that most other European languages use his name as the root of that day (mercredi (French), mercoledì (Italian), miércoles (Spanish), miercuri (Romanian)). Wednesday derives more from “Odin’s Day”. While Odin is a complex god, he is also associated with widsom, poetry, and magic–all Mercurial traits. Thursday, or Thor’s day, corresponds with Jupiter–which is fitting as both were “thunder gods”. Friday–or Frigga’s day–is associated with Venus, which works out nicely as both are love goddesses. Saturday is the only English day where the name derives from a Roman god–Saturn–so that day is easy enough to see the correspondence. (In Old English, the original name for this day was sunnanæfen, or “sun” + “eve”.)
Planetary Correspondences
Every hour in each day, though, also has a planetary correspondence. My thought on the matter is that the hour’s planetary energies wouldn’t necessarily supercede the day’s planetary energies, but it would augment them. For example, a Martian hour during Friday might be great for particularly passionate, animalistic lovemaking, while a Mercurial hour on Friday would be good for having meaningful conversations with your loved ones.
The day’s hours begin with the time of sunrise on that particular day. Therefore, if the sun rises at 6:42 am, the first hour runs from 6:42 to 7:42. The last hour of the day would then run from 5:42 on the subsequent day to the minute of the following day’s sunrise. Therefore, the last hour of the day will frequently not be a solid 60 minutes. The first hour of each day is given the planetary correspondence of that day; for example, hour 1 on Monday will also be ruled by the moon. The hours then run in order from the above chart, and repeat at the eighth hour. The cycle repeats until the end of the day. A complete chart is available below:
The log of Magical Hours within each day
To complete the day’s information, Roderick asks us to answer the following questions:
Find out the time of sunrise from your newspaper (or timeanddate.com). Consider the day of the week and calculate the magical hour you are in right now.
I’m working this exercise on Wednesday, April 17th and the sun rose at exactly 6:19 AM today in Olympia, Washington. It is currently 1:53 pm. That means that I’m in the middle of the 8th hour, which is ruled by Mercury today.
What types of magic are best suited for this planetary hour?
Well, Mercurial magic is best suited for all manner of communication work–magic, knowledge acquisition, writing, talking, etc.
Check the newspaper for tomorrow’s sunrise time. What is the planetary influence at this same time tomorrow?
Sunrise is at 6:18 AM tomorrow, which means I’ll still be in the 8th hour at 1:53 tomorrow. The planetary influence at that time, however, will be Jupiter.
Three Hundred and Sixty-Six 