The day pillar for Friday, 21 May 2027
| Day pillar | 庚子 (geng zi) |
|---|---|
| Heavenly stem | 庚 (geng) |
| Earthly branch | 子 (zi) |
| Day element | Metal 金 (jin) |
| Polarity | Yang |
| Solar term | 小满 (xiaoman) |
| Month pillar | 乙巳 (yi si), governed by 立夏 (lixia) |
Today's day pillar is 庚子 (geng zi), a yang Metal day in the sixty-day cycle. Today is also the solar term 小满 (xiaoman), one of the twenty-four stations of the solar year. The month pillar is 乙巳 (yi si), governed by the term 立夏 (lixia).
小满 (xiaoman), grain fills
小满 is the term where the grain in the ear has begun to fill but is not yet full, around the twenty-first of May.
小 is small and 满 is full, so the name means slightly filled. It is one of the few terms describing a stage of ripening rather than heat, cold or water, and it has no 大满 to match it, which farmers have joked about for centuries.
It is a medial term sitting inside the 巳 (si) month. The pairs of 小 and 大 terms elsewhere in the year, 小暑 and 大暑, 小雪 and 大雪, 小寒 and 大寒, all work as lesser and greater versions of the same condition.
On the daily page it governs until 芒种 (mangzhong), when the month pillar moves on to the horse month.