The day pillar for Sunday, 17 January 2027

Day pillar	丙申 (bing shen)
Heavenly stem	丙 (bing)
Earthly branch	申 (shen)
Day element	Fire 火 (huo)
Polarity	Yang
Month pillar	辛丑 (xin chou), governed by 小寒 (xiaohan)

Today's day pillar is 丙申 (bing shen), a yang Fire day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 辛丑 (xin chou), governed by the term 小寒 (xiaohan).

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.