The four pillars

Your chart is built from four pillars: the year, month, day and hour you were born. Each pillar has a top element and a bottom element, so a full chart has eight. Traditionally the pillars are written right to left, with the year on the right and the hour on the left.

Without a birth time there is no hour pillar, so the chart has six elements instead of eight, and some parts of the reading can't be worked out.

The five elements

Every part of your chart belongs to one of five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. They aren't read alone. Each element strengthens one element and tempers another, and those two cycles are how a chart is balanced.

Your Element Master

Your Element Master is the element that represents you. It is the top element of your Day pillar, and the rest of the chart is read in relation to it.

Every other element in your chart either supports your Element Master or drains it. Its own element and the element that feeds it are support. The rest are drains. We add both sides up, hidden elements included, and count your birth month twice, because the season you were born in carries the most weight. The result shows as a percentage:

Yin and yang

Each element comes in two forms. Yang is the bold, outward form of an element, like the sun, and yin is its quiet, inward form, like a candle flame. Both are Fire, and neither is better than the other.

Top elements

The top element of each pillar is one of ten, known as the heavenly stems. Their names don't translate into everyday words. Each simply stands for the yin or yang form of an element.

Bottom elements and animals

The bottom element of each pillar is one of twelve, known as the earthly branches. Each belongs to one of the twelve zodiac animals and carries that animal's element.

Two names look alike in English letters but are different characters: Wu 戊 is Yang Earth and Wu 午 is the Horse. The Tiger's name, Yin 寅, is unrelated to yin and yang.

Hidden elements

Most bottom elements hold extra elements inside them, which don't show on the surface of the chart. They still count towards how strong or weak your Element Master is. Depending on its animal, a bottom element holds none, one or two.

Your balancing element

Your balancing element is the one that brings your Element Master back towards the middle, and it is the element your bracelet is built around.

A weak Element Master needs support, so its balancing element is the element that feeds it. A weak Fire is balanced by Wood. The second element in the bracelet is its own element.

A strong Element Master needs an outlet, so its balancing element comes from the elements that draw on it or temper it, starting with whichever is least present in the chart.

A balanced Element Master only needs to stay that way, so its bracelet brings in the elements the chart has least of.

Missing elements

An element is missing when none of the eight elements in your chart belongs to it. It is natural to want to add it, but a missing element is not always the one your chart needs.

Take a weak Fire with no Water. Water puts out Fire, so adding it would weaken the Element Master further. Its balancing element is Wood. Whenever this happens, your chart says so in the additional note.

Your birth chart bracelet

Your chart is set at the moment you were born, and it doesn't change. The Four Pillars tradition works with it by bringing the element your chart needs into your everyday life, through the colours, materials and objects you keep close.

A bracelet is the simplest way to do that, because it stays with you all day. Your birth chart bracelet is made for your chart alone. The largest group of beads carries your balancing element, the rest carry the other elements your chart needs, and the number of each comes from your chart. It is built around your balancing element, not your missing one, for the reason explained above.

Each bracelet is made to your wrist size, from 12 mm beads with smaller spacers between them. The spacers carry your balancing element as well, so nothing on the bracelet works against your chart.

Each bead carries its element through its colour or material:

It is also something to come back to during the day. When you notice it on your wrist, it is a reminder of the balance your chart is working towards.

Your zodiac sign

Your zodiac sign is the animal and element of your Year pillar, such as Metal Monkey or Fire Horse.

In the Four Pillars, the year begins at the start of spring (立春, Lichun), which falls on 3, 4 or 5 February. Many popular zodiac charts begin the year at Lunar New Year instead, which moves between 21 January and 20 February. For anyone born between those dates, the two can give different animals. Your chart uses the start of spring, as the Four Pillars tradition does.

Your charm

A charm carries an element twice: through its animal and through its material. Wood carries Wood. Gold carries Metal. Jade, as a stone, carries Earth.

Your charm is an animal of your balancing element that sits well with the animals already in your chart. Its material carries the same element where it can. Fire and Water have no charm material of their own, so their charms are made from the material that feeds them, unless that material works against your chart.

How your chart is calculated

A Five Element birth chart is easy to get wrong, and most free calculators do in one of three ways: they start the year on 1 January, change the month on a fixed date, or read the hour straight off the clock.

Ours starts the year and each month at the exact moment the sun reaches the right point in the sky, calculated from NASA JPL's DE440 planetary data. The hour comes from the sun time at your birthplace, which can differ from the clock by most of an hour, because the tradition reads the hour from the sun. Our results have been checked against published almanac dates.

Your birth details are calculated on your own device. Nothing is sent or stored unless you ask for a copy of your chart.