己酉 ji you

己 above, 酉 below

The stem generates the branch: Earth produces Metal. The upper half of the pillar feeds the lower half, so the visible stem is spending itself on what it sits above.

Where 己酉 sits in the five elements

Wood, Fire and Water do not appear anywhere in this pillar.

Metal leads at 52.4%, then earth at 47.6%.

What is buried inside 酉

酉 hides a single stem, 辛 (Metal) — what the stem produces.

己 meeting 酉: the 長生 stage

The twelve stages (十二長生): yang stems run forward, yin stems backward.

己 meets 酉 at the 長生 stage — birth.

酉 against 卯, with 辰

Opposite across the cycle (六沖), and paired with (六合):

Clashes with

卯 (Rabbit) — 丁卯

Combines with

辰 (Dragon) — 戊辰

Nayin: 大驿土

Nayin (納音) groups the cycle in pairs, each with an image. This one shares its image with 戊申: 大驿土, “earth of the great post road.”

How 己酉 is conventionally read

己 is cultivated soil: earth that is worked, turned, and made to grow things. 酉 is autumn at its purest, everything weighed and cut to shape.

A earth-element day master on a metal footing — one of eight characters, which colours a chart and does not fix the person.

When the next 己酉 days fall

The sixty-cycle repeats every sixty days, so this pillar returns roughly every two months. The next one is 1 December 2026 (Tuesday). Each is calculated at midday Beijing time; a birth in the hour before midnight can still belong to the previous 己酉 day, because the day rolls at 23:00 true solar time.

Showing up to eight of the 6 occurrences in the next twelve months, from 2026-10-31.

己 on six different footings

Six pillars carry this stem. It is the same day master every time, so everything that differs below is caused by the branch underneath it:

Here the footing is Metal — what the stem produces. The other five branches this stem sits on are 巳 (Fire), 卯 (Wood), 丑 (Earth), 亥 (Water), 未 (Earth).