The day pillar for Monday, 1 February 2027

Day pillar	辛亥 (xin hai)
Heavenly stem	辛 (xin)
Earthly branch	亥 (hai)
Day element	Metal 金 (jin)
Polarity	Yin
Month pillar	辛丑 (xin chou), governed by 小寒 (xiaohan)

Today's day pillar is 辛亥 (xin hai), a yin Metal day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 辛丑 (xin chou), governed by the term 小寒 (xiaohan).

Metal 金 (jin)

Metal is the element of the edge, the phase that separates what is finished from what is not.

金 is autumn and late afternoon, the season of harvest and of deciding what to keep. Its stems are 庚 (geng), unworked ore, and 辛 (xin), the finished blade. Its branches are 申 (shen) the monkey and 酉 (you) the rooster. English speakers sometimes read Metal as cold, but the tradition means precision and definition.

Earth produces Metal and Metal produces Water, which is why autumn leads into winter in the cycle rather than simply preceding it in the calendar. Metal controls Wood, the axe and the tree, the most physical image in the whole set.

When the page shows Metal as the day element, the day's stem is 庚 or 辛. During the autumn months you will see those days cluster, because the month pillar and the day pillar are counting the same year.