Your Day Master is the heavenly stem of your day pillar (see what the Day Master is). If yours is 戊, you are a Yang Earth Day Master. Not sure? The free calculator shows it at the top of your chart.
| Stem | 戊 Wu |
|---|---|
| Element · polarity | Earth · Yang |
| Sibling stem | 己 Ji Earth (yin) |
| Strongest season | the last month of each season (辰 未 戌 丑), and in many schools summer |
| Birth · Peak · Tomb | 寅 · 午 · 戌 (twelve life stages) |
| Combines with | 癸 — the pair is said to transform into fire (combinations) |
The classical verse
The Di Tian Sui (滴天髓), the most quoted text on the ten stems, gives 戊 a verse of eight four-character lines:
戊土固重，既中且正，靜翕動闢，萬物司命，水旺物生，火燥囍潤，若在坤艮，怕沖宜靜。“Wu earth is solid and heavy, central and upright. Still, it gathers; moving, it opens; it governs the fate of all things. When water is strong, things grow; when fire makes it dry, it delights in moisture. If it sits in Kun or Gen, it fears clashes and prefers stillness.”— Di Tian Sui (Drops from Heaven’s Marrow) 《滴天髓》, 天干論. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
Reading the verse line by line
The commentary corrects a popular idea that Wu is the earth of city walls:
戊為山岡之土，非城牆之謂，較己土特高厚剛燥“Wu is the earth of hills and ridges, not of city walls; compared with Ji earth it is especially high, thick, hard and dry.”— Di Tian Sui (Drops from Heaven’s Marrow) 《滴天髓》, 天干論. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
“Still, it gathers; moving, it opens.” In spring and summer its qi opens and things grow; in autumn and winter it closes and things are brought to completion. That is why it “governs the fate of all things”.
“When water is strong, things grow; when fire makes it dry, it delights in moisture.” Wu is yang and dry, so the commentary says it likes moisture and dislikes dryness. Water is Wu’s wealth; a dry Wu with some water becomes fertile.
“If it sits in Kun or Gen, it fears clashes.” Kun (坤) and Gen (艮) are trigrams associated with the branches 申 and 寅. Wu sitting on 寅 fears 申; sitting on 申 fears 寅. A clash moves its root, and a mountain should be still:
坐寅怕申，坐申怕寅，蓋沖則根動，非地道之正也，故宜靜“Sitting on Yin it fears Shen; sitting on Shen it fears Yin. For a clash moves the root, which is not the proper way of earth; therefore it should be still.”— Di Tian Sui (Drops from Heaven’s Marrow) 《滴天髓》, 天干論. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
Wu in the four seasons
- Spring: wood (its Seven Killings) is strong; fire to bridge wood into earth is valued.
- Summer: fire feeds earth; often strong and dry — water is the classic need.
- Autumn: metal drains earth; fire and earth support help.
- Winter: cold and wet; fire to warm it matters most.
The ten gods for a 戊 Day Master
Every other stem in your chart takes a role relative to 戊. This is the ten gods table worked out for Wu Earth; hidden stems inside the branches (see hidden stems) use the same table.
| Stem | Element | Ten god | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 Jia | Yang Wood | 七杀 | Seven Killings |
| 乙 Yi | Yin Wood | 正官 | Direct Officer |
| 丙 Bing | Yang Fire | 偏印 | Indirect Resource |
| 丁 Ding | Yin Fire | 正印 | Direct Resource |
| 戊 Wu | Yang Earth | 比肩 | Companion |
| 己 Ji | Yin Earth | 劫财 | Rob Wealth |
| 庚 Geng | Yang Metal | 食神 | Eating God |
| 辛 Xin | Yin Metal | 伤官 | Hurting Officer |
| 壬 Ren | Yang Water | 偏财 | Indirect Wealth |
| 癸 Gui | Yin Water | 正财 | Direct Wealth |
Strong or weak?
Whether a 戊 Day Master is strong or weak depends on the whole chart, above all the month branch. In most modern tables Wu follows fire: born in 寅, peaking in 午, with its tomb in 戌. Earth roots (辰 戌 丑 未, and earth hidden in 寅, 巳 and 申) and fire (resource) add strength; wood, metal and water reduce it. Earth months at the end of each season are also counted as earth’s time. The general method is on the Day Master and useful god pages.
A word on personality descriptions
Many websites give each Day Master a fixed personality. The classical texts do not work that way: the verse above describes how 戊 behaves in different seasons and next to other elements, and the same 戊 reads very differently in a summer chart and a winter chart. We give the traditional images as tradition, for cultural study, not as a description of any real person.
All ten Day Masters
甲 Jia Wood · 乙 Yi Wood · 丙 Bing Fire · 丁 Ding Fire · 戊 Wu Earth · 己 Ji Earth · 庚 Geng Metal · 辛 Xin Metal · 壬 Ren Water · 癸 Gui Water
Calculate your chart to find your Day Master, its strength factors and your luck pillars.
Keep learning
More in Day Masters, plus core guides — or go back to the Bazi calculator home page.
Classical quotations are copied from the public-domain texts on Wikisource; links let you check every line. English translations are our own. Traditional Bazi statements are reported as tradition, not as fact.