Ding Chou Day Pillar

A small flame drying wet clay — slow work with nothing to show for a long time, and what finally shows is solid.

A stream in a gorge — clear, quick, and shaped by the narrow way it has to take.

In the sixty-pillar cycle each image is shared by exactly two pillars. 丁丑 shares Water in the Ravine with 丙子, though the two differ in polarity, animal and hidden stems.

Dīng carries the image of candlelight. That is this pillar's baseline; the branch it is paired with decides the rest.

Chǒu is Earth, yin in polarity, and carries the Ox.

Hidden stems: every branch conceals stems of its own, in descending weight — Jǐ Earth (60%), Guǐ Water (30%), Xīn Metal (10%).

the stem feeds the branch (Output)

This pillar spends itself outward — expressive, productive, better at making things than talking about them, and easier to drain.

Note: this reads the day pillar alone. A full chart has three more pillars plus the luck cycles, and the balance is only settled by all of them together.