The day pillar for Thursday, 17 December 2026

Day pillar	乙丑 (yi chou)
Heavenly stem	乙 (yi)
Earthly branch	丑 (chou)
Day element	Wood 木 (mu)
Polarity	Yin
Month pillar	庚子 (geng zi), governed by 大雪 (daxue)

Today's day pillar is 乙丑 (yi chou), a yin Wood day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 庚子 (geng zi), governed by the term 大雪 (daxue).

The BaZi year starts at 立春, not at Lunar New Year

立春 (lichun) around the fourth of February is where the year pillar changes, and it is not the same date as the lunar new year everyone celebrates.

立春 means the beginning of spring, and it is the first of the twenty-four solar terms. The BaZi calendar is solar, tied to the sun's position rather than to the moon's phases, so the year turns when the sun reaches a fixed point in early February. Lunar New Year moves around between late January and late February because it follows the moon.

The two can fall weeks apart, which makes this the single most common mistake in charts done casually. Someone born in the middle of January belongs to the previous BaZi year, whatever the zodiac animal on the calendar in the kitchen says.

The month pillar follows the same logic one step down: months change at the twelve sectional terms, not on the first of anything.