The 10 Day Masters · 十日主

The Day Master (日主) is the Heavenly Stem sitting on the day pillar of a BaZi chart, and it is the reference point every other character in the chart is read against. There are ten of them: the five elements, each in a yang and a yin form. Polarity matters as much as element here. Yang Wood 甲 and Yin Wood 乙 are both Wood, but the classical images are a forest tree and a garden shrub, and they behave differently under the same conditions.

Knowing your Day Master is the beginning of a reading, not the whole of it. Strength, the season of birth, and the useful god (用神) all sit on top of it, which is why two people sharing a Day Master can read in opposite directions. This reference covers all ten.