辛丑 xin chou

辛 above, 丑 below

The branch generates the stem: Earth produces Metal. This is the more comfortable arrangement of the two — the ground under the stem is feeding it rather than draining it.

Where 辛丑 sits in the five elements

Wood and Fire do not appear anywhere in this pillar.

Metal leads at 48.1%, then earth at 40.7%.

What is buried inside 丑

丑 hides 3 stems. The primary is 己 (Earth), what produces the stem; behind it sit 癸 (Water, what the stem produces) and 辛 (Metal, the same element as the stem).

辛 meeting 丑: the 養 stage

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

辛 meets 丑 at the 養 stage — nurture.

丑 against 未, with 子

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

Clashes with

未 (Goat) — 辛未

Combines with

子 (Rat) — 甲子

Nayin: 壁上土

Nayin (納音) groups the cycle in pairs, each with an image. This one shares its image with 庚子: 壁上土, “earth on the wall.”

How 辛丑 is conventionally read

辛 is finished metal: jewellery, a needle, the edge that has been honed. 丑 is the last stretch of winter, storing what is not yet ready.

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

When the next 辛丑 days fall

The sixty-cycle repeats every sixty days, so this pillar returns roughly every two months. The next one is 23 November 2026 (Monday). Each is calculated at midday Beijing time; a birth in the hour before midnight can still belong to the previous 辛丑 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.

辛 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 produces the stem. The other five branches this stem sits on are 未 (Earth), 巳 (Fire), 卯 (Wood), 亥 (Water), 酉 (Metal).