A glossary of the old calendar — character, sound, and what it actually means. So you can read the daily notes without a translation sitting between you and them.
by Cold Stream
Someone wrote to me last night and said, gently, that they wished I gave the sounds as well as the characters — that they wanted to be able to say these words, not only recognise them on a screen.
It was the right thing to ask, and I had not thought of it. A character you cannot pronounce stays an ornament. A word you can say becomes yours.
So here they are: the sound, the character, and the meaning. The pinyin is written with tone marks, because the tone is not decoration — mǎi is to buy and mài is to sell, and the calendar is no more forgiving. If you are unsure, say it flat and slow. Nobody on this mountain is grading you.
This is ordered by how often you will meet a word, not alphabetically. The first section is enough to read any daily note.
日主·rì zhǔ·the day master
You. Not your personality, not your sign — the single element you are made of, taken from the day you were born. Everything else in a chart is described by what it does to this one thing.
日柱·rì zhù·the day pillar
Two characters that name the day: one stem above, one branch below. The day pillar is the sentence; the day master is its subject.
日支·rì zhī·the seat below the day
The branch under your day master. It is traditionally read as the seat of the person closest to you — which is why, in the old books, your own footing and your closest relationship are never quite separable. One seat, not two.
大運·dà yùn·the great luck
The long weather. Ten years at a time, moving slowly enough that you rarely notice the turn while it is happening.
流年·liú nián·the flowing year
The year passing over the chart. Faster than the great luck, slower than a mood.
應期·yìng qī·the answering time
The moment a pattern already present in the chart finally meets the thing that triggers it. Nothing new arrives at an answering time. Something dormant simply gets a date. It is why such moments feel less like news and more like recognition.
Ten relationships, not ten forces. Each one describes how something stands towards your day master — feeding it, draining it, governing it, matching it.
正官·zhèng guān·the proper officer
The standard that has a legitimate claim on you. A good boss, an honest rule, the form you agreed to.
七殺·qī shā·the seven killings
The same pressure, without the manners. It does not ask permission. Handled well it becomes authority; handled badly it becomes a life spent bracing.
官殺·guān shā — the two spoken of together: whatever has a claim on you.
正財·zhèng cái·proper wealth — what is earned steadily.
偏財·piān cái·sideways wealth — what arrives, and can leave the same way.
財·cái — the pair together: what you want, and what you can take hold of.
正印·zhèng yìn·the proper seal
What gives and asks nothing. Shelter, teaching, the inheritance you did not have to earn.
偏印·piān yìn·the sideways seal
also called 梟神·xiāo shén·the owl spirit
From the outside it is indistinguishable from the proper seal — the same care, the same attention. The difference is what it does to you over years. One raises you; the other keeps you needing it. The tell is never the giving. It is whether you grew.
食神·shí shén·the eating spirit
The part of you that speaks before it calculates. Ease, appetite, the thing you make because making it is pleasant.
傷官·shāng guān·the hurting officer
The urge to break a finished form and make a better one. It is called hurting because of what it does to the proper officer — to the agreed shape. Every real change costs one.
比肩·bǐ jiān·shoulder to shoulder — the peer who stands level with you.
劫財·jié cái·the robbing of wealth — the peer who reaches for the same plate.
沖·chōng·the clash
Two branches sitting directly opposite. Not disaster — movement. Something closed is opened, usually without being asked.
合·hé·the combination
Two that bind and become something else. The most useful line in the whole tradition is this one:
Give a clash something to hold and it loses interest in the fight.
三合·sān hé·the triple harmony — three branches making one element between them.
墓庫·mù kù·the storehouse
Four of the twelve branches are vaults. They hold rather than express. What is stored there is not gone; it is waiting for the key.
伏吟·fú yín·the repeated chant — the same pillar meeting itself. The year insists on what you already are.
反吟·fǎn yín·the reversed chant — its opposite arriving instead.
And one line worth carrying:
The strike does not land. It wakes the thing it was aimed at.
太歲·tài suì·the Grand Duke of the Year
The official presiding over the year. 值太歲 zhí tài suì is standing in his office; 沖太歲 chōng tài suì is standing opposite it.
The long version, and the four signs at an awkward angle to him this year — the Year God →
節氣·jié qì·the joints and breaths
The twenty-four divisions of the solar year. The calendar's real hinges — a month here turns on the sun's angle, not on a number.
桃花·táo huā·peach blossom — the star of attraction, and of being looked at.
五行·wǔ xíng·the five movements
Wood, fire, earth, metal, water. Not substances. Five phases of one motion.
Each one at length, and the two rings that bind them — the Five Elements →
命·mìng and 運·yùn
The chart you were given, and the weather it passes through. The first does not change. The second always does. Most of what people call fate is a confusion between the two.
Ten stems and twelve branches turn against each other like two gears until they return to the start — sixty days, sixty years. A day named 己亥 jǐ hài will not come round again for sixty days, and the day named for the year of your birth waits sixty years to repeat.
You do not need the tones to be right for the reading to work. The calendar is older than the romanisation and indifferent to both.
But say them anyway. Something changes when a word leaves the page — 官殺 stops being two symbols and becomes guān shā, a thing with weight, a thing you might notice pressing on a Tuesday. That is the whole purpose of a vocabulary: not to be learned, but to be available when you need to name what is happening.
If a word you met in a daily note is missing here, it is my oversight, not your gap. Tell me and I will add it.
A lens, not a prediction — for reflection, not professional advice, and no outcome is promised.
— Cold Stream, the hermit who reads the old calendar
The words are only worth having if something uses them. Enter your birthday and the morning note arrives written for your own chart — your day master, what the day is doing to it, and the one move that fits. Free, every morning.
Enter your birthday — it's free →Just your birthday · no account, no spam
The system these words come from, in full — BaZi, the Four Pillars →. And the rest of the shelf — the Almanac →
Hermit Compass is offered for reflection and entertainment, not as professional advice or a prediction of specific events. What you do with a reading is your own decision.