| Day pillar | 丙午 (bing wu) |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem | 丙 (bing) |
| Earthly branch | 午 (wu) |
| Day element | Fire 火 (huo) |
| Polarity | Yang |
| Month pillar | 癸卯 (gui mao), governed by 惊蛰 (jingzhe) |
Today's day pillar is 丙午 (bing wu), a yang Fire day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 癸卯 (gui mao), governed by the term 惊蛰 (jingzhe).
A day pillar is a day's own name in the BaZi calendar: one heavenly stem written above one earthly branch.
A pillar is always two characters. The top one is a heavenly stem, one of ten, and the bottom one is an earthly branch, one of twelve. Written together they name something: a year, a month, a day or a two-hour period. 癸亥 (gui hai) and 甲子 (jia zi) are pillars, and so is every pair you will see on this page.
A full BaZi chart has four of them, which is what Four Pillars means, and the day pillar is the one the reading revolves around. In a natal chart it is built from the date someone was born. On a daily page it is built from today, so it belongs to the day rather than to any person.
Under the pillar the page also names the element and polarity of the stem, and the month pillar the day sits inside. Those are all readings of the same two characters, not extra ingredients.