A metal Day Master born in 未, the goat month
The month pillar is the strongest single influence on whether a Day Master is supported. 未 is the last month of summer; it opens at 小暑 Minor Heat, around 7 July, and runs to about 7 August.
- Day Master phase
- 金 Metal
- Month branch
- 未 Wèi
- Opens at
- 小暑 Minor Heat
- Roughly
- 7 July – 7 August
- Branch phase
- 土 Earth
What the month does to the Day Master
Born in 未, the last month of summer, with a metal Day Master. 相 by the table — an earth month, and earth produces metal — but this is the case where the table and the classics disagree, and the classics are worth following.
未 holds 己 earth, 丁 fire and 乙 wood, and it is the 木庫, the vault of wood. The earth should produce you. The problem is that 未 is 燥土, dry earth, in the hottest quarter of the year, and 《滴天髓》 states the consequence plainly: 「土乾則脆」. Ground this dry does not make metal. It makes brittle metal.
《窮通寶鑑》 reads the sixth month as the tail of the heat and asks for water, and for a metal Day Master that request does double work — it cools the season and it moistens the ground that is supposed to be producing you.
The practical reading: water first, then earth once there is moisture in it. Additional fire continues the problem, and the wood stored in the branch is material rather than pressure.
Formally produced by the month and not actually produced by it. That gap is the whole of this position, and it is one of the most commonly misread in the year.
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.