jia-wu day pillar

甲午 sets yang wood on 午, the Horse branch, whose element is fire. Wood feeds fire in the generating cycle, so the stem spends itself on the seat beneath it. This site's table lists 丁 and 己 inside 午: for a 甲 day master 丁 is the Hurting Officer, a name for yin fire the wood produces, and 己 is Direct Wealth, yin earth the wood controls. 三命通會 reads this branch differently, with 丙 and 丁 and no 己 at all.

On the twelve-stage cycle 甲 reaches 死, Death, at 午. The word marks a step in a sequence modeled on a human life, and it describes the placement of a stem. This same branch is where 乙, the yin partner of 甲, has its Growth, so one count ends where the other opens.

三命通會 卷一 files 甲午 under metal, in line with its 納音 name Gold in the Sand, and then gives an image that goes well past sand: 百炼精金, pure metal refined a hundred times. It says this metal likes water, wood and earth. A row of labels follows that the chapter leaves unexplained, so they are set aside here.