An earth Day Master born in 丑, the ox month
The month pillar is the strongest single influence on whether a Day Master is supported. 丑 is the last month of winter; it opens at 小寒 Minor Cold, around 5 January, and runs to about 4 February.
- Day Master phase
- 土 Earth
- Month branch
- 丑 Chǒu
- Opens at
- 小寒 Minor Cold
- Roughly
- 5 January – 4 February
- Branch phase
- 土 Earth
What the month does to the Day Master
Born in 丑, the last month of winter, with an earth Day Master. 得令 — the Self holds the mandate — and 丑 is the coldest branch in the twelve, which is the fact that governs this block.
丑 holds 己 earth, 癸 water and 辛 metal, and it is the 金庫, the vault of metal. Your phase leads, stored water sits under it, and your output is banked inside. On the table this is your month. By temperature it is the bottom of the year.
《窮通寶鑑》 gives the twelfth month the same instruction it gives every Day Master: warmth first, and nothing substitutes for it. For an earth Self holding the mandate in frozen ground, that produces the sharpest split in this whole section between what the count says and what the chart can actually do.
The reading follows the temperature rather than the table. Fire is load-bearing here despite 得令. Additional earth adds mass to something already inert, and additional water deepens what is already excessive.
Holding the mandate and unable to use it until something warms it. That is the shape, and it is the clearest example in the year of why this section reports a structural position rather than a verdict.
Cast the chart this page describes
The four pillars, the Day Master, the five-phase count, the day’s almanac read against the chart and the true solar time working — about 2,700 words — are free and need no account. The chart is computed in the browser; nothing about the birth is sent anywhere.