Guess what? I’ve been studying bazi for more than a year now! It’s been giving me all of these feelings that I had when I first started studying western astrology. It’s this sheer excitement and also this fascination with the art and the craft. Everything in life starts to feel a bit more magical.
I wanted to write this article playing with examining just Min Yoongi’s day pillar in bazi not because I feel that I’m so good at it or like I have any expertise to show off yet but because I truly love the art, I am endlessly fascinated with idols, and I wanted to share that with anyone reading this in case you catch the bazi bug too.
Since the day pillar is just a small component of the eight character chart, this also feels like a low stakes way to explore the practice of reading. Keep in mind that an overall description of your chart has a lot more stuff involved than I’m doing here. You have to look at both your chart and your timing and know how to read the balances and imbalances. What I’m doing here is really just for fun.
I’m reading the day pillar of the four pillar chart because the day pillar is usually seen as the pillar that reflects your character. All of the other parts are viewed using the day pillar in bazi.
Eventually, I want to look at all of BTS’s day pillars but you know why I started with Min Yoongi? Because his day pillar is so so fucking sexy.
I mean it. He’s an earth cow. This is Ji Chou or 己丑. I’ve written before about how he uses the symbol of a cow over and over again in his videos. So, he must have seen his chart before.
Ji is Yoongi’s Heavenly Stem. Ji is yin earth which is different from yang earth. Yang earth is like the mountains while yin earth is like the soil.
As yin earth, Ji is wet earth. Here’s the description of it from the Di Tiansui scriptures:
己土卑湿，中正蓄藏。
不愁木盛，不畏水狂。
火少火晦，金多金光。
若要物旺，宜助宜帮。
The first four characters say the Ji earth is vulgar and wet. The next four characters discuss its storage abilities, saying that it can conceal things. The word 卑 is can be something like vulgar or crude but also humble and modest. It’s low. Ji earth doesn’t aim for lofty things. It’s not elitist at all. But it is mysterious. It can hide things. That’s the second part of the first line.
You know, predebut BTS teased its members. Yoongi made content very sparingly. He showed us a video of just his hands with him talking. He has this sexy voice and sexy hands too but he makes you imagine what he looks like. Only later does he show face. He emerges like the sexiest anime characters do—with a lot of teasing and a lot of hiding. He’s still up to similar things these days where he doesn’t show his seven tattoo and he played up the mystery around his D-Day album and tour. He enjoys teasing us with the tattoo’s absence saying, “Where is it? Where is it?” knowing that we’re thinking about his body and trying to see it. That’s his flirtation style. He hides as a tease.
The middle section of the poem describes how Ji earth interacts with the other phases: it nurtures wood into flourishing, Ji earth can withstand mad things like rampant water, it can suffocate some fire is that fire is small (yin fire or Ding), and it has a lot of minerals which can create gleaming jewels.
There’s so much richness in Ji earth. God! It’s saturated with this richness. You can almost taste it.
A lot of the yin stems are thought of as more sensitive to the outer environment and a bit fragile. Fire can be put out, water can be evaporated, grass can be stepped on, and jewelry can be tarnished. Ji earth is different. Ji earth has an absorbent quality. It’s yin but it can take on a lot. It just stores it somewhere. That’s why pure yin is thought of as the earth. The earth is empty, like a sponge, and can just keep taking it in.
The last part of the poem has more information about Ji earth. Ji earth can become almost all things. It can give birth to all things. Then, it says “宜助宜帮.” This says that Ji earth will always support and nurture all things. It’s a giver.
Yoongi is a giver. He nurtures what is inside of him. There’s a huge bounty of richness that lives inside of him. He can conceal things without you even knowing that he’s hiding anything and this is nurturing too. He’s wet and he’s vulgar—almost lewd. He carries the eroticism of Ji earth.
The Earthly Branch of Yoongi’s day pillar is Chou. Usually, Chou is translated to be ox but it can also be bull or cow. The word for cow/bull/ox aren’t gendered and they’re all the same thing. I’m gonna call it cow because I like that more. Why not? Why is Chou always seen as the ox in the zodiac? It can be cow.
Actually, the word for cow/ox/bull is niu. This word is often associated with the slang for pussy. You usually say that something is really cool or that someone is arrogant using the words cow pussy or niubi. That’s because cow is associated with the womb and it’s the branch that denotes pregnancy as a stage of life.
So Yoongi is an earth cow. In bazi, the branch receives the stem. You can think about this sexually or instructionally. The stem tells the branch what to do and the branch decides how it’s going to do it. The stem enters the branch and the branch responds to the stem.
Yoongi has what we can call a rooted pillar. This is because Chou cow is also yin earth just like his day pillar stem. There are three hidden stems in Chou: 己 (ji), 癸 (gui), and 辛 (xin).
Ji earth is yin earth. Chou having this as its main hidden stem is what makes Yoongi’s pillar rooted. It’s like the stem roots into the branch. Gui water is yin water. This makes sense because Chou being wet earth would have a little water. Xin is yin metal and are all of the minerals in the soil. Earth nurtures all of these minerals and makes beautiful gems.
As an animal, the cow is actually the animal that should have been first in the zodiac. It started the earliest and it goes the hardest. It has a lot of endurance. The body is strong. However, the mouse saw that the cow has all of these talents and decided to make a deal. It would sit on the cow’s back along with the cat. The cow allowed this. However, at the last moment, the mouse kicked the cat off and hid in the cow’s ear. Right before they crossed the finish line, the mouse ran to the cow’s nose and won first place. This is why the cow got second place.
We can see some aspects of the cow from this story. The cow is also ambitious and did want to be first. It worked towards that goal and got up early. However, it helps others along the way. It doesn’t mind giving someone else a ride or even two people. It’ll carry your weight for you.
It’s also not so fast with its reflexes. Cows make intentional moves and they won’t waste energy flitting around like some other animals. They are plodding rather than running. When the mouse killed the cat, the cow didn’t even get the chance to help the cat. It didn’t have time to stop the mouse from stealing first place either. This is why cows can be taken advantage of. Moreover, the mouse hid in the cow’s ear the way things might hide in the soil. The cow can also conceal things.
You know, I think there’s something about Min Yoongi’s story in here. You know that competition he was in that got him noticed by Bang Sihyuk? He won second place. Someone else won first place. Winning second place made Yoongi push himself harder. It didn’t defeat him.
In Amygdala too, Yoongi talks about being in grief and in crisis when he could only choose between the second best option and the third best option. He sings “second best option” like a badge of pride. These words reveal his tenacity and his endurance. He was defeated but he’s still going. He doesn’t allow something like having only the second and third best options available to defeat him. This is real strength and, maybe, this is what the mouse saw in the cow to make it place its bets on it rather than all of the others.
Ji Chou is a deeply creative pillar. It’s creative just because it is. It can’t help itself. It makes all of these valuable things the way the soil creates gems. No one else can create the things it does. It creates patiently and it takes its time. It makes sure that the things it makes are truly and densely nutritious. Chou cow is the branch that symbolizes pregnancy. Pregnancy is a symbol of creation. We could say that Yoongi is pregnant with his art. He’s fertile. He has so much to draw from.
But does he work fast? You know, Yoongi has said that when it flows it flows. Sometimes it only takes him 30 minutes to write the lyrics for a song. However, he’s known for delaying his work. During the interview for their Respect performance, Namjoon said that they’re like the tortoise and the hare. I think that Yoongi will procrastinate, hanging onto things and concealing them, until they almost spill out of him.
The metal and the earth in Chou work with Ji as the stem. The second Ji earth in Chou supports the stem and gives it stability. Xin metal gives it talent. Yoongi’s talents shine the way jewels shine and taste as rich as the minerals we all need. Gui water gives Yoongi endurance. Not only is he willing to take action but he’s willing to commit. His talents won’t be expended without bearing fruit. He’ll make tangible and memorable things. The jewels will be polished by the water and they’re glisten.
And then earth accepts all. It doesn’t tower over you. It’s literally what you step on and walk over. It is base and its interests are common. Yoongi has said that he has obvious taste and he likes to make things that are accessible, not overly intellectual. He can speak to children, to animals, to elders. He wants to speak to everyone. That’s part of his generosity too. The cow doesn’t mind if the rat and the cat don’t get along and doesn’t ask too many questions either. It just accepts both of them onto its back.
