| Day pillar | 丙寅 (bing yin) |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem | 丙 (bing) |
| Earthly branch | 寅 (yin) |
| Day element | Fire 火 (huo) |
| Polarity | Yang |
| Month pillar | 壬寅 (ren yin), governed by 立春 (lichun) |
Today's day pillar is 丙寅 (bing yin), a yang Fire day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 壬寅 (ren yin), governed by the term 立春 (lichun).
寅 is the tiger branch, the branch where spring and the whole BaZi year begin.
寅 is Wood, yang by position, and its animal is the tiger. Its hours are 03:00 to 05:00 and its month starts at 立春 (lichun) in early February. That makes it the first month of the year in this system, which is why the year turns in February rather than in January or at Lunar New Year.
A romanization warning: the branch 寅 comes out as yin in pinyin and so does 陰, the yin of yin and yang. They are different characters with different tones and nothing to do with each other. 寅 is in fact a yang branch, which makes the collision especially confusing on the page.
Three stems hide inside it, 甲 (jia, yang Wood), 丙 (bing, yang Fire) and 戊 (wu, yang Earth), a spring branch already carrying the fire that summer will need.