The five elements and your Day Master

Ten minutes to understand the basics of your chart without a glossary: what the four pillars are, how the five elements relate to each other and why one sign in the chart is called the “master”. Five questions at the end to check yourself.

This is the course as the app shows it (Ask → Course); the Spanish text is a translation of the English original.

The four pillars

A BaZi (“eight characters”) chart is a birth date and time converted by the rules of the traditional calendar into four pillars: year, month, day and hour. Each pillar is a pair of signs — a heavenly stem on top and an earthly branch below. Eight signs in all, hence the name. Every sign has a main element among the five, and reading a chart starts with which elements are present, which are scarce, how strong the season makes them and how they act on each other.

The five elements

The elements are not substances but five ways of acting, tied to the seasons. Wood grows and plans (spring). Fire shines and draws attention (summer). Earth holds and cares (the turn of the seasons). Metal cuts and decides (autumn). Water flows and gathers (winter).

The two cycles

The elements are linked by two cycles. Generation: Wood feeds Fire, Fire leaves Earth (ash), Earth bears Metal, Metal condenses Water, Water grows Wood. Control: Wood holds Earth with its roots, Earth dams Water, Water puts out Fire, Fire melts Metal, Metal cuts Wood. In a chart, the links are read from one sign, the Day Master (next section): to be generated is support, to generate is output, to control is wealth (the resources one manages), to be controlled is pressure or discipline. Neither cycle is “good” or “bad” by itself: what matters is how much, and for whom.

The Day Master

The heavenly stem of the day pillar is called the Day Master — the sign that “stands for you” in the chart. The other signs, including the extra stems hidden inside the earthly branches, are read relative to it: the signs of its own element and of the element that feeds it support it; what it produces, what it controls and what controls it draw on it. There are ten stems — each element in two forms: yang (outward, active) and yin (inward, receptive). Traditional images: Yang Wood is a great tree, Yin Wood grass and vine; Yang Fire the sun, Yin Fire a candle; and so on. A strong or weak Day Master is not a judgement of the person but a question of how much support it has in the chart: the season of the month branch, its roots (its own element among the stems hidden in the branches), and how many signs support it against how many draw on it.

Check yourself

1. How many signs are there in a BaZi chart?

1. Four
2. Eight
3. Ten

2. Which element generates Fire?

1. Water
2. Metal
3. Wood

3. What does Water do to Fire in the control cycle?

1. Puts it out
2. Feeds it
3. Is unrelated to it

4. Where does the Day Master stand in the chart?

1. The stem of the year pillar
2. The stem of the day pillar
3. The branch of the hour pillar

5. A “weak Day Master” means…

1. a weak person
2. that the Day Master has little support in the chart, counting the season and its roots
3. a mistake in the birth date

In the app

The app shows the same course with the quiz and ties it to your own chart: the Day Master, the elements that are present and missing, and the planner that reads the day from them. See the features and the library of terms.