Understand the chart.

Everything holds both at once, each carrying a seed of the other and turning into it at its extreme. Chinese metaphysics never wants "all yang" or "all yin" — only whether yin and yang flow and balance in a person. The taiji symbol pictures exactly that living balance.

It gives you a vocabulary for tension: the ratio of drive to stillness, outward to inward in you, sets the rhythm you work best in. Imbalance isn’t a flaw — it points to which way to lean.

This is polarity / complementary opposites — Jung’s anima/animus, active vs. receptive. Western astrology even splits signs into masculine/active (fire, air) and feminine/receptive (earth, water) — the same instinct.

They interlock through two cycles. Generating (Wood feeds Fire → Fire makes Earth → Earth bears Metal → Metal carries Water → Water grows Wood) is a relay of nourishment. Controlling (Wood breaks Earth → Earth dams Water → Water quenches Fire → Fire melts Metal → Metal cuts Wood) is checks-and-balances. A healthy system keeps both turning.

Your chart maps how much of each energy runs in you. Knowing you’re "strong Fire, thin Wood" is like knowing you’re "high drive, short on patient growth" — a vocabulary for yourself, not a verdict.

If you know astrology’s four elements, Wǔxíng is the five-part cousin — with an added logic of cycles (generating and controlling) linking them. It describes types of energy; it doesn’t forecast events.

Scholars prefer "Five Phases" (processes, not substances); we use the popular "Five Elements" but note "phases" on first mention.

They pair up: 甲 = yang Wood, 乙 = yin Wood; 丙 = yang Fire, 丁 = yin Fire, and so on — each element split into yang and yin gives ten stems. They are the outward, "celestial" upper half of the stem-branch system.

Your Day Master — the single symbol that stands for you — is one of these ten stems. Knowing them is what lets your chart say "which kind of energy you are."

Think of them as ten "flavors" of the five elements — five colors, each split into a bright and a muted shade.

Each branch secretly carries one to three stems inside it (the hidden stems), making it the deeper, interior layer of a chart. Branches each hold an element and polarity, and form relationships with one another — combinations, clashes, and frictions.

Your birth year, month, day, and hour each land on a branch; your zodiac animal is simply the animal of your year-branch. Reading the branches and their hidden stems reveals structure the surface characters can’t show.

Just as the Western zodiac divides the sky into twelve segments, the branches divide time and direction into twelve — and the hidden stems are like finer ingredients tucked inside each one.

Years, months, days, and hours are each named by a stem-branch pair, so every single day carries its own unique stem-branch "name" (e.g., a 甲子 day). The eight characters of BaZi are simply the four stem-branch pairs of your birth moment.

This is the codebook that translates time into elemental energy — without it, a moment in time could never become a readable chart.

Picture a 60-tooth odometer of time, stems and branches meshing like gears — a little like the Maya calendar round, except every tooth here carries elemental meaning.

Crucial: a chart’s month pillar follows the solar terms, not the lunar month. You enter the 寅 month at the instant of 立春, not on lunar New Year’s Day. People assume BaZi is lunar — but the month is set by the sun.

Your month pillar sets the seasonal baseline of your chart (someone born in deep winter runs "cold" and needs Fire’s warmth). Get the solar term wrong by a day and the whole month pillar can be wrong.

Exactly like "the Sun enters Aries" in Western astrology — seasons defined by the Sun’s position along the ecliptic, not the Moon.

The "four beginnings" (立春/立夏/立秋/立冬) also mark when our Deep Chart delivers its four seasonal volumes.

Clocks use one "standard time" for an entire zone, but when the sun is actually overhead depends on how far you sit from the zone’s central meridian. A chart’s hour pillar needs true solar time; a finer correction (the equation of time) can be layered on.

A shift of one or two double-hours changes the hour pillar and ripples through the whole chart. This step is the foundation of an accurate cast.

Much like an astrologer converting birth time into local sidereal time to pin down your Ascendant — the same "turn clock time back into astronomical time" correction.

Each pillar governs a life stage and a domain: Year → ancestry, early life, society; Month → parents, career, youth (and it sets the chart’s seasonal command — the most pivotal); Day → the self and spouse; Hour → children, later life, aspirations.

These eight characters are the raw material of the whole map. Everything that follows — who you are, where you’re strong, what you lack — is read from them.

The equivalent of an astrological natal chart: a structural snapshot of you, frozen at the moment of birth.

The whole chart is read around it: how the other seven characters relate to it (produce it, control it, are produced/controlled by it, or match it) defines the Ten Gods. Its strength (strong vs. weak self) shapes the whole reading.

It answers "what energy am I, at core" — a 甲 (yang Wood) Day Master is like a tall tree reaching upward, with its own temperament and needs.

Like the "core self" anchor your Sun or Ascendant gives — except here the anchor is one elemental stem.

午 hides 丁 and 己; 寅 hides 甲, 丙, 戊. Hidden stems carry different weights (primary, middle, residual). Reading them reveals the chart’s true elemental foundation.

Two people with similar surface characters can diverge sharply once their hidden stems differ. They are the key to the layer beneath the obvious.

Like going beyond Sun signs to the aspects tucked inside the houses — the real configuration beneath the surface.

Strength leans heavily on the season of birth (the "month command"): Wood peaks in spring, Water in winter; the same Wood is weaker if born in summer. So strength is judged first by season, then by position and support.

This is the basis for "what you lack and what to reinforce" — and the foundation our Today’s-Element algorithm personalizes from.

Think of it as an energy radar chart of you: which axes are full, which empty, at a glance.

Two things set them: the elemental relation (same as me / I produce / I control / controls me / produces me) × polarity. That yields Friend & Rival (peers), Output & Hurting Officer (expression), Direct & Indirect Wealth (money), Officer & Seven Killings (duty, pressure), Direct & Indirect Resource (learning, shelter).

It turns abstract elements into human terms: who supports you, how you express, how you relate to authority and money — a personality language for reading yourself.

Much like the "functions/archetypes" of the planets — each God is a psychological drive, an Eastern set of archetypal roles.

Common types include the Officer, Output, or Seven-Killings structures; broadly split into "orthodox" patterns and "special/follow" patterns (where the chart yields to one overwhelming force). A clean structure concentrates strengths; a mixed one needs finer reading.

It’s like first deciding "which kind of life-script this is," then filling in detail — so you see the forest before the trees.

Comparable to reading the dominant element or major aspect pattern (a Grand Trine, a T-square) that characterizes a whole chart.

Schools differ on naming and assigning patterns (Zǐpíng, Blind School, modern). We use the mainstream Zǐpíng framework and defer to chart evidence.

Finding the Useful God is the heart of the craft: a weak self usually wants support, a strong self wants draining or control, a cold chart needs Fire, a hot one Water. The Taboo God isn’t to be destroyed — it’s to be channeled correctly.

It turns the chart from description into guidance: which energies, environments, colors, directions to lean toward — a self-regulation guide, not a fortune.

Like knowing which "nutrient" you’re short on and topping it up on purpose — regulation, not fate.

Multiple methods exist for choosing the Useful God and schools often disagree; we judge holistically toward overall balance.

Decade pillars are sequenced from the month pillar, running forward or backward depending on the year’s polarity and your gender; the start age is computed from the days between birth and the nearest solar term. It doesn’t change your chart — it sets which way the wind blows.

The same chart meets wildly different fortunes across decades. It explains why some stretches of life feel easy or hard.

Like transits and progressions in astrology — the natal chart is fixed, but time lights up different parts of it as it passes.

Reading a year means seeing how the elements/Gods it brings interact with your chart — does it feed your Useful God or trigger your Taboo God, clash or combine? The decade sets the ten-year tone; the year sets what happens this year.

The basis for "what to guard against or lean on this year" — and a natural hook for annual and seasonal content.

The astrological "year ahead" — the same natal chart, triggered differently each year.

Not one report you read once and shelve, but four installments along the natural rhythm — each season’s volume reads you against that season’s energy.

It turns "a one-off reading" into "a companion through the year" — a retention and premium-value design echoing the logic of seasons set by solar terms.

Like a subscription "quarterly forecast," except the content belongs to your chart alone.

They’re derived from how the Day Master or year/day branch relates to the four pillars, thickening the chart’s narrative. Key: they color the story — they are not used to predict events (the principle in our shensha.ts). We compute eight of the most cited stars.

Their vivid names (Peach Blossom, Travel Horse, Canopy…) make them perfect for turning a chart into characters and archetypes — the source of our Shén Shā card deck.

Much like the asteroids, sensitive points, and fixed stars layer in astrology — fine narrative texture rather than the backbone.

A broken line is yin, a solid line yang; three lines make a trigram (Heaven, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth), and two trigrams stack into 64 situations. It is a different system from BaZi (sharing yin-yang and trigram roots) and powers the divination side of the product.

BaZi reads "who you are and your long arc"; the I Ching reads "the situation of this question, right now." One is a map; the other a compass for the moment.

Like a dictionary of situational archetypes — matching the present moment to one of 64 typical situations and a fitting stance, much like drawing tarot for a question.

A Chinese name is usually "surname + two-character given name." Good naming reinforces the Useful God, balances sound and meaning, and avoids unfortunate homophones or taboos. Our naming covers three cases: newborn, rename, and English-to-Chinese.

A name is an "energy patch" called out every day — one of the few places metaphysics offers an active adjustment, which makes it intensely practical.

Like deliberately choosing a name that carries a quality (Western parents pick for meaning too) — with an added layer of elemental reasoning.

Not a fatalistic "compatible or not" verdict, but a look at where two people nourish each other and where they rub — to understand how to be together.

Relationships are the most-asked-about topic — and the heart of the product’s "share card → cast with a friend" viral loop.

This is astrology’s synastry — only here the comparison is of elements and stem-branches.

It synthesizes the day’s stem-branch, symbolic stars, and other systems. In the product we present it de-mystified — explaining its logic and symbolism rather than promoting superstition.

It pulls metaphysics into everyday decisions — a high-frequency, lightweight touchpoint (great for daily content).

Akin to Western electional astrology — picking an astrologically favorable day to act.

Layer one: today’s day-pillar stem (+3) and its hidden stems (weights summing to 10) form the day’s elemental field. Layer two: the scarcer an element is in your chart, the higher its need coefficient (= 1 + (20 − percent)/50, clamped 0.6–1.4). Multiply, take the highest; ties break in a fixed Wood→Fire→Earth→Metal→Water order — reproducible, not hand-editable.

Explaining exactly how today’s color is derived signals "this isn’t made up — it follows definite logic" — precisely the trust a premium product needs.

Like a daily "energy weather forecast" made only for you — with a transparent, reproducible algorithm.

Source: lib/chart/dailyElement.ts.

It is built from three layers: Fate (your BaZi structure) + Nature (personality from a psychometric scale) + Situation (your present context and daily notes). Together they form the "layered light orb" that converses with you and helps you see yourself.

It is the soul of the product — turning a static chart into a companion in the mirror who reflects you and grows with you.

Close to Jung’s "know thyself" and the more integrated Self — a mirror that speaks, not a fortune-teller.