Yin Water day master
Gui, the tenth and last stem: Yin Water, the stream. In Four Pillars the stem of the day of birth is the self, and everything else in the chart is read as what supports it, drains it, or stands in its way.
What the tradition says
Four Pillars reads a Yin Water day master as the stream, the rain, the mist: adaptable, quietly persistent, going round what it cannot move and wearing it down over time. The tradition associates it with intuition, gentleness, a talent for nourishing things without being noticed, and a patience that outlasts louder elements. It wants Metal to spring from and Wood to feed, and it finds its way into every crack.
The honest shadow is the stream's evasiveness: a habit of slipping away from confrontation, a moodiness like weather, and a tendency to dissolve into whatever is around it. The tradition says a Yin Water chart with too much Earth is a stream soaked up, and one with too much Fire is mist burned off by noon.
What supports it, and what it supports
Yin Water is Water. In the cycle of the five, Metal produces Water and supports it; Water produces Wood and is drained by it; Water controls Fire; and Earth controls Water. A chart is read by counting which of the five is plentiful and which is missing around the day master, and the tradition's word for a good chart is not a strong one but a balanced one.
Metal to rise from, Wood to feed, a little Earth to channel it, and shelter from too much Fire. Yang Water beside it swallows it; on its own it is rain, which the tradition reads kindly.
The image, as the site reads it
Yin Water is the stream. Adaptable and quietly persistent, going around what it cannot move and wearing it down over time.
Postcard versus reading, from the other side
Your year animal is the character everyone knows. Yin Water is the one the tradition reads first, and hardly anyone knows theirs.
The year animal is the branch of the year pillar, shared by everyone born in the same twelve months. The day master is the stem of the day pillar, one of ten, and it changes every day, so it is the character of a birth rather than of a cohort. The tradition weighs the other seven characters against it: what feeds Yin Water, what drains it, what it controls and what controls it. A Yin Water born in a Dragon year and one born in a Rat year are read as the same self in different weather, and two Dragons with different day masters are read as different people who share a postcard.
The ten year luck pillars are read against the day master too: each decade's stem and branch is weighed as support or drain for Yin Water, which is what the calculator's luck pillar section does once sex at birth is given.
About 60 seconds · needs your date, time and place · the four pillars are drawn for you
Questions people ask
How do I find my day master?
From the day pillar, which the calculator works out from your date and place of birth by the solar terms rather than the calendar. It is the stem, the upper character, of the day column, and it is the same for everyone born on that day anywhere in the world.
Is Yin Water a strong day master?
Strength in Four Pillars is a reading of the chart around the day master, not a virtue of the stem: Yin Water is strong when Metal and Water are plentiful in the other pillars and weak when Earth and Wood are. The tradition prefers balance to strength, and reads a strong day master with nothing to do as a burden.
What is the difference between Yin Water and Yang Water?
Same element, opposite polarity: the stream against the ocean. The tradition reads Yang as the outward, forceful form of the element and Yin as the inward, flexible one, and it does not rank them.
We read charts for pattern and coherence, not prediction. Nothing here tells you what will happen, and nothing here tells you who you are; it shows a structure and leaves the judgement with you.