Element Compass

A Chinese Five Elements birth chart, read in plain English.

Understand the elements within.

Element Compass turns your birth date, hour and place into a Four Pillars chart — the eight characters of BaZi — and explains what your five elements say about you.

Chart your elementsSee how it works

You will need your birth date, time and city. It takes about a minute.

A feng shui compass: the twenty-four mountains, eight trigrams, five elements and ten stems arranged in rings around a needle.子癸丑艮寅甲卯乙辰巽巳丙午丁未坤申庚酉辛戌乾亥壬木火土金水甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸

One chart, four pillars

Your birth year, month, day and hour each become a pair of characters: a heavenly stem above, an earthly branch below. Four pairs, eight characters. The stem of your day is your Day Master — the character the rest of the chart is read against.

Year

1993

癸

Yin Water

酉

Rooster, Metal

Month

April

丙

Yang Fire

辰

Dragon, Earth

Day

21st

壬

Yang Water

申

Monkey, Metal

Day Master

Hour

10:30

乙

Yin Wood

巳

Snake, Fire

A sample chart for a birth on 21 April 1993 at 10:30. Day Master 壬, Yang Water. Two Water, two Metal, two Fire, one Earth, one Wood.

Five elements, one cycle

Every character in a chart carries one of five elements. Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal carries Water, Water grows Wood. Your chart is a count of how the five meet — which are strong, which are missing, and what that balance asks of you.

  1. 木

    Wood

    Growth, reach and new beginnings.

    East, spring

    feeds 火 Fire

  2. 火

    Fire

    Warmth, expression and momentum.

    South, summer

    feeds 土 Earth

  3. 土

    Earth

    Steadiness, trust and holding things together.

    Centre, the turn of each season

    feeds 金 Metal

  4. 金

    Metal

    Clarity, structure and resolve.

    West, autumn

    feeds 水 Water

  5. 水

    Water

    Depth, flow and insight.

    North, winter

    feeds 木 Wood

How it works

  1. 1

    Enter your birth details

    Date, time and city. Clock time is converted to true solar time, so the hour pillar comes out right.

  2. 2

    Read your chart

    Eight characters, five elements, one Day Master — each with a plain-English explanation. No jargon to memorise.

  3. 3

    Follow your chapters

    A chart unfolds in ten-year chapters. See which element is shaping the current one, and what the next brings.

Chart your elements

Start from what you already know

If you know your Chinese zodiac animal, you already hold one of your eight characters: the branch of your birth year. The other seven are waiting.

  • 子

    Rat

    Water

  • 丑

    Ox

    Earth

  • 寅

    Tiger

    Wood

  • 卯

    Rabbit

    Wood

  • 辰

    Dragon

    Earth

  • 巳

    Snake

    Fire

  • 午

    Horse

    Fire

  • 未

    Goat

    Earth

  • 申

    Monkey

    Metal

  • 酉

    Rooster

    Metal

  • 戌

    Dog

    Earth

  • 亥

    Pig

    Water