The day pillar for Saturday, 17 April 2027
| Day pillar | 丙寅 (bing yin) |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem | 丙 (bing) |
| Earthly branch | 寅 (yin) |
| Day element | Fire 火 (huo) |
| Polarity | Yang |
| Month pillar | 甲辰 (jia chen), governed by 清明 (qingming) |
Today's day pillar is 丙寅 (bing yin), a yang Fire day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 甲辰 (jia chen), governed by the term 清明 (qingming).
丙 (bing), the third heavenly stem
丙 is yang Fire, and its image is the sun: light that falls on everything without being aimed at anything.
Third of the ten stems, 丙 is Fire in its yang form. The tradition keeps the image large and impersonal, the daylight rather than the flame you carry, which is why it is described as warmth that reaches whatever happens to be standing there.
In the sixty-day cycle 丙 arrives on every tenth day, and because it is yang it pairs only with yang branches: 丙寅 (bing yin), 丙辰 (bing chen), 丙申 (bing shen) and so on. Its position also gives it a job in the month pillar, where the year's stem decides which stem opens the months.
When today's stem is 丙, the page reads Fire and yang. That is a description of the day's texture in the tradition's own vocabulary, and the tradition means tempo by it, never a verdict on the person reading.