The day is the third of the Four Pillars of Destiny and in Chinese fortune telling represents information about the person him/herself, his/her adult and married life.

The sexagenry cycle was used in China since the second millennium BC (Shang Dynasty), as a means of naming days (just as western cultures use the days in the week). This use of the cycle for days is attested throughout the Zhou dynasty. More recently this is not as popular but is still used in Almanacs and calendars.

The 1st day of a new year in the sexagenary cycle should be the Lichun (節氣 lìchūn). The Lichun is the 1st solar term. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 315° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 330°. It more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 315°.

In the lunisolar calendar, New Year's Day might be before or after Lichun. A year without Lichun is called 無春年 wú chūn nián (no spring year). 無春年 is also known as 寡婦年 guǎfu nián (widow year) in northern China or 盲年 máng nián (blind year) in southern China. Marriage is believed to be unlucky in a year without Lichun.

I have found it hard to find the corresponding elements and animals of the days themselves, however you can use the calculator to find out your day on my post about the Four Pillars...

Four Pillars Year & Sexagenary Cycle
六十花甲 liùshí huājiǎ or
干支gānzhī

Within the Four Pillars (Ba Zi) Years are the largest element. They are the most generic and least personal in fortune telling. The years are based off of the Ten Heavenly Stems (十天干 shí tiāngān) and Twelve Earthly Branches (十二地支 shí'èr dìzhī).

There are 5 'Elements', 五行 wǔ​xíng​ in Chinese Astrology,

* Wood 木 mù
* Fire 火 huǒ
* Earth 土 tǔ
* Metal 金 jīn
* Water 水 shuǐ

These 5 elements combine with yin and yang to make the Ten Heavenly stems 天干 tiāngān.

The 12 earthly branches were devised from the orbit of Jupiter (the twelve years of the Jupiter cycle also identify the twelve months of the year, directions, seasons, months, and Chinese hour in the form of double-hours.)

The more commonly known animals of the zodiac provide a mnemonic for remembering them. The animals of the zodiac in addition to the Ten Heavenly Stems give us 60 years with each animal and each element pairing up only once in the sexagenary cycle.

To explain how this cycle works, lets give both stems and branches by their numbers. We denote 1 by (1,1) or (甲,子), 2 by (2,2) or (乙,丑) and so on up to (10,10) or (癸,酉). But now we have run out of stems, so we denote 11 by (1, 11) or (甲,戌) and 12 by (2, 12) or (乙,亥). Now we have run out of branches, too, so 13 becomes (3, 1) or (丙,子). We continue in this way through 6 cycles of stems and 5 cycles of branches up to 60, which is (10, 12) or (癸,亥). The next number is then (1,1) or (甲,子), which starts a new sexagenary cycle.

Within the Four Pillars, the year is the pillar representing information about the person's ancestry or early age.

You can download the table below by clicking the image and saving the pdf. It provides the full sexagenary cycles between 1924-2044 with the associated elements and zodiac animals.

Four Pillars of Destiny

Even today, when people talk about Chinese Astrology, it is a common misconception that the animals assigned by year are the only signs of the zodiac. Many western descriptions of Chinese astrology draw solely on this system. In fact, there are also animal signs assigned by month (called inner animals) and hours of the day (called secret animals).

Four Pillars of Destiny is a Chinese term that comprises of four elements of a person’s destiny or fate. The four components are taken from the moment of birth. They are the year, month, day, and time (hour). Each of these elements are important in Chinese astrology, the zodiac and fortune telling.

The term Four Pillars of Destiny come from the Chinese:

I recently got a comment on my Heisig post from a while back asking how I was doing (as today was supposed to be my finish date if I had kept up with my proposed schedule).

I have got to admit I have been lazy, or if you like excuses; I have been so busy that I have ended up ignoring what I wanted to achieve. I have got about 600 characters into Heisigs method and despite a lot of effort have found my motivation waning. I read Greg's recent post about motivation in language learning add that to the sense of guilt I feelby not meeting my own deadline and I feel a much renewed sense of wanting to complete Heisig and start really pushing my learning forwards again.

It is being widely reported that this looks like Google removing their censorship in China. What I see though, is Google finding a way to remove itself from the problems it faces in China.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China." Google blog post