Your month, read properly
A monthly reading is not a shorter yearly one. It answers a different question: how does this particular month sit against your chart? BaZi and Zi Wei answer that from two different angles, and the two answers are worth reading side by side.
What a monthly reading covers
BaZi · the month pillar
The month's stem is read as a ten god relative to your Day Master — the same five relationships (resource, output, wealth, officer, companion) that structure any BaZi chart, applied to the month in front of you. The month's branch is then checked against your own four branches for combination, clash and harm. That second step is why one month lands differently for two people who share a Day Master.
Zi Wei · the flowing month
Your natal chart stays fixed; the twelve palaces are renamed for the month, so the palace that governs the month is read where it actually sits in your chart. The month's four transformations (禄 权 科 忌) are then laid on top — which is how the month's emphasis is located inside your own structure rather than in the abstract.
How the month is placed
The month pillar is not simply the second column of the year. Its stem follows from the year stem by the Five Tigers rule (五虎遁), and its branch advances one step per solar term — which is why the month turns over around the 4th–7th of the Gregorian month, not on the 1st.
On the Zi Wei side the base chart is built once and the month is laid over it: the twelve palaces are renamed and the month's transformations placed. Nothing in your natal chart moves. The month is a lens, not a second chart.
Both sides describe mechanism, not verdict. A month where the officer relationship is emphasised is a month whose live theme is structure and obligation — it names what the month is asking you to work with, not what will happen.
Monthly, yearly and daily
Each timescale answers a different question, and they are not substitutes for one another.
| Reading | Question it answers | Cast from | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily | What is the tone of today? | The day's stem and branch against your chart | Free — see /horoscope/ |
| Monthly | What is this month working on? | Month pillar, plus the flowing month in Zi Wei | Paid — included in Premium |
| Yearly | What is the year's theme? | The year branch's relationship to your sign | Free — see /forecast/ |
Common questions
Do I need my exact birth time?
It helps, but it is not required. The hour sharpens the fourth pillar and the hour-dependent Zi Wei palaces. Without it the reading still runs, from three pillars and a noon default — the month still reads, with the hour-dependent palaces less specific.
Is this the same as the free pages?
No. The free database pages explain the system — what a ten god is, what a palace is, how the branches interact. A monthly reading applies all of it to one birth chart and one specific month. The database tells you what the parts mean; the reading tells you what they are doing this month.
Do I have to buy it again next month?
A monthly reading is cast for the month you buy it in, so yes — the next month is a new reading, because it is genuinely a different calculation. The Premium tier bundles the monthly recalculation rather than charging for it separately; see the pricing on the services page.
Can I get the same thing for free from a calculator?
Partly. The BaZi calculator will give you your four pillars and ten gods at no charge, and that is the real basis of the BaZi half. What it does not do is read the month pillar against your branches, or place the flowing month in Zi Wei — that comparison is the reading.
Go deeper
BaZi database · Zi Wei Dou Shu · Today's reading · Free calculators
Ordering happens on the services page
This site is a static one — the checkout and the PDF delivery run through Payhip, which is why the buy button lives with the product list rather than here.
See pricing and order →