Joan Chen’s BaZi chart 陈冲

The three pillars the date fixes

Each pillar is two characters: a stem on top (an element, yin or yang) and a branch below (one of the twelve zodiac animals). The day stem is the day master — the person. The label above each other stem is its ten god (Shi Shen, 十神): what that element is to the day master.

Each animal also hides stems of its own, strongest first: the Ox hides Yin Earth (己, Friend), Yin Water (癸, Indirect Wealth), Yin Metal (辛, Eating God); the Dragon hides Yang Earth (戊, Rob Wealth), Yin Wood (乙, Seven Killings), Yin Water (癸, Indirect Wealth); the Ox hides Yin Earth (己, Friend), Yin Water (癸, Indirect Wealth), Yin Metal (辛, Eating God).

Eating God (Shi Shen, 食神)

What you produce, same polarity. Output that comes easily: making, feeding, expressing, without strain.

Friend (Bi Jian, 比肩)

Same element, same polarity as you. A peer: someone standing where you stand, competing for the same thing and equally able to share the load.

Indirect Wealth (Pian Cai, 偏财)

What you control, same polarity. Wealth that comes sideways rather than by salary — the uneven kind.

Direct Wealth (Zheng Cai, 正财)

What you control, opposite polarity. Wealth held steadily — earned, kept, accounted for.

Rob Wealth (Jie Cai, 劫财)

Same element, opposite polarity. A peer who takes rather than shares — the tradition reads it as what draws on your resources through people close to you.

Seven Killings (Qi Sha, 七杀)

What controls you, same polarity. Pressure with nothing softening it: demand, risk, and whatever you answer to whether you chose it or not.

Day master

Born in a Dragon month (Chen, 辰), when Earth rules the season. In that season Yin Earth is thriving (Wang, 旺): the season is its own. (One of five seasonal states, Wang Xiang Xiu Qiu Si, 旺相休囚死, after the San Ming Tong Hui, 三命通會, book 2.)

Elements in the six known characters

None of the six is Wood, Fire. The hour pillar’s two characters may supply it or may not — that depends on the hour. Hidden stems are not counted here.

All twelve hours, cast one by one

In all twelve hours the Yin Earth day master reads strong. Whatever the hour, the support-and-restrain method favours Metal, Water, Wood — the date alone settles it.

Each row is exactly what the full calculator would say for a birth in that hour. Strength comes from three tests: in season (De Ling, 得令) — born in the season of the day master’s own element; rooted (De Di, 得地) — the same element hidden in a branch; backed (De Shi, 得势) — as much support around it as drain. Two of three reads strong. The favoured elements come from support and restrain (Fu Yi, 扶抑): a strong day master wants draining, a weak one wants support. There are three other methods for the useful element — climate (Tiao Hou, 调候), bridging (Tong Guan, 通關) and disease and cure (Bing Yao, 病藥) — each from its own text; see the useful god page. Hours are solar time at the birthplace, so a clock time needs correcting first; and a birth after 23:00 falls in the late Rat hour, where the two schools disagree about whether the day has turned.

Joan Chen’s bone weight (Cheng Gu, 称骨)

Lunar date: day 12 of the 3rd month, Metal Ox year (辛丑年三月十二). Its weights: year 0.7 liang, month 1.8 liang, day 1.7 liang — 4.2 liang before the hour. Over the twelve hours that makes 4.8 liang to 5.8 liang.

Bone weighing is a folk almanac sum over the calendar positions of the year, month, day and hour — not the elements, and not the chart above. How heavy is heavy? The tables and the spread ›