The day pillar for Friday, 5 March 2027

Day pillar	癸未 (gui wei)
Heavenly stem	癸 (gui)
Earthly branch	未 (wei)
Day element	Water 水 (shui)
Polarity	Yin
Solar term	惊蛰 (jingzhe)
Month pillar	壬寅 (ren yin), governed by 立春 (lichun)

Today's day pillar is 癸未 (gui wei), a yin Water day in the sixty-day cycle. Today is also the solar term 惊蛰 (jingzhe), one of the twenty-four stations of the solar year. The month pillar is 壬寅 (ren yin), governed by the term 立春 (lichun).

惊蛰 (jingzhe), insects awaken

惊蛰 is the term named for hibernating creatures being startled out of the ground by the first spring thunder, around the fifth of March.

The two characters mean startled and dormant. It is one of the more literal names in the set, and one of the oldest images: the year making enough noise to wake what was sleeping.

惊蛰 is sectional, so it starts a month pillar. It opens the 卯 (mao) month, the rabbit month, which is the middle month of spring and the one that holds the equinox.

You will see it as the governing term on the daily page for about thirty days. A day that falls exactly on the change is a term day, and the month pillar above it will already read the new month.