甲戌 jia xu

甲 above, 戌 below

The stem controls the branch: Wood restrains Earth. The pillar is internally under tension, and that tension is structural, not a mood.

Where 甲戌 sits in the five elements

Water does not appear anywhere in this pillar.

Earth leads at 40.7%, then wood at 37.0%.

What is buried inside 戌

戌 hides 3 stems. The primary is 戊 (Earth), what the stem restrains; behind it sit 辛 (Metal, what restrains the stem) and 丁 (Fire, what the stem produces).

甲 meeting 戌: the 養 stage

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

甲 meets 戌 at the 養 stage — nurture.

戌 against 辰, with 卯

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

Clashes with

辰 (Dragon) — 戊辰

Combines with

卯 (Rabbit) — 丁卯

Nayin: 山头火

Nayin (納音) groups the cycle in pairs, each with an image. This one shares its image with 乙亥: 山头火, “fire on the mountain top.”

How 甲戌 is conventionally read

甲 is the first stem: upright, forward, the trunk of a tree rather than its branches. 戌 is dry earth that closes the season and holds it.

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

When the next 甲戌 days fall

The sixty-cycle repeats every sixty days, so this pillar returns roughly every two months. The next one is 26 December 2026 (Saturday). Each is calculated at midday Beijing time; a birth in the hour before midnight can still belong to the previous 甲戌 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.

甲 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 Earth — what the stem restrains. The other five branches this stem sits on are 子 (Water), 申 (Metal), 午 (Fire), 辰 (Earth), 寅 (Wood).