The Five Elements

The Five Elements (五行, wǔ xíng) are the vocabulary of BaZi. Every Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch in a birth chart carries one of them: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water. Rather than physical substances, they describe five ways energy moves: growing, radiating, holding, refining and flowing.

They are linked by two cycles. In the generating cycle, Water feeds Wood, Wood feeds Fire, Fire leaves Earth, Earth bears Metal and Metal carries Water. In the controlling cycle, Wood parts Earth, Earth contains Water, Water tempers Fire, Fire shapes Metal and Metal prunes Wood. A BaZi reading looks at how these relationships play out around your Day Master.

Each element appears twice among the ten Day Masters, once as Yang and once as Yin. Choose an element to read what it means, how it shows up in a personality, and what too much or too little of it looks like.