The day pillar for Monday, 2 August 2027

Day pillar	癸丑 (gui chou)
Heavenly stem	癸 (gui)
Earthly branch	丑 (chou)
Day element	Water 水 (shui)
Polarity	Yin
Month pillar	丁未 (ding wei), governed by 小暑 (xiaoshu)

Today's day pillar is 癸丑 (gui chou), a yin Water day in the sixty-day cycle. The month pillar is 丁未 (ding wei), governed by the term 小暑 (xiaoshu).

Water 水 (shui)

Water is the element of depth and movement, the phase where things are stored, dissolved and carried somewhere else.

水 is winter and the night hours. Its stems are 壬 (ren), the ocean, and 癸 (gui), the dew. Its branches are 亥 (hai) the pig and 子 (zi) the rat. Classically it is associated with intelligence, memory and adaptability, the capacity to take the shape of whatever holds it.

Metal generates Water and Water generates Wood, which closes the loop back to spring. Water controls Fire, the only relationship in the five that most people already have an intuition for. The cycle has no end and no top, which is the point of drawing it as a circle.

A Water day is one whose stem is 壬 or 癸. Water is also the element the sixty-day cycle ends on, since 癸亥 (gui hai) is day sixty, Water above and Water below.