How to read your BaZi chart
A BaZi chart converts your year, month, day and hour of birth into four stem-branch pairs — the Four Pillars. Traditionally they are written right to left: Year, Month, Day, Hour.
1. Start with the Day Master
The stem of the Day pillar is you and sets the base of your personality. → 甲 · 乙 · 丙 · 丁 · 戊 · 己 · 庚 · 辛 · 壬 · 癸
2. Find your core star
The Ten God of the hidden stem in your Month branch shows your way of life and work style. → Friend · Rob Wealth · Eating God · Hurting Officer · Indirect Wealth · Direct Wealth · Seven Killings · Direct Officer · Indirect Resource · Direct Resource
3. Check energy with the Twelve Stages
How strong your Day Master is in each branch, in 12 steps. → Birth · Bath · Coming of Age · Prosperity · Peak · Decline · Sickness · Death · Tomb · Extinction · Conception · Nurture
4. Look at the five-element balance
Count Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water in the chart. Plentiful elements are strengths; missing ones are worth consciously adding.
5. Note your void branches
Two branches derived from your Day pillar that mark periods to tread carefully. → Void branches
What each pillar represents
Generally: Year — childhood and family line; Month — youth, society and career; Day — yourself and your spouse; Hour — later life and children.
Mind the solar terms
In BaZi the year starts at Lichun (around February 4), not January 1, and months change at solar terms, not on the 1st. If you were born near a solar-term change, enter your birth time and time zone.