2027 Chinese Zodiac: The Year of the Fire Goat (丁未) in BaZi

In 1966, the year of the Fire Horse, Japan's births fell by a quarter. In 1967 they came back: about 1.94 million, 42 per cent more than the year before and more than in 1965. Many families who had waited out the Fire Horse had their children the year after.

That year was 丁未, the Fire Goat. 2027 is the next one.

This post is about what the year is in BaZi rather than in a zodiac column: when it starts, what it brings to each day master, one unusual afternoon in July, and the superstition the Fire Goat shares with the Fire Horse.

When the Goat arrives

BaZi's year begins at 立春, the Start of Spring, not at Lunar New Year. In 2027, 立春 falls on the morning of 4 February in East Asia, which is still the evening of 3 February in the Americas. Lunar New Year follows on 6 February.

So for a day or two the calendars disagree. A baby born in Seoul on 5 February 2027 is a Goat in BaZi and still a Horse by the lunar calendar, which doesn't turn until the 6th. A baby born in January 2027 is a Horse either way: in BaZi, 丙午 runs until 立春.

The animal has three English names. 未's animal is 羊, a word that covers goats, sheep and rams alike, so 2027 is the Year of the Goat, the Sheep or the Ram, depending on who's translating. This site calls it the Goat. Its element comes from the stem: 丁 is yin Fire, which is what makes it the Fire Goat.

Fire over Earth

A year pillar is two characters, and this one is Fire on top and Earth below. Where the tradition pictures 丙, last year's stem, as the sun, it often pictures 丁 as a lamp or a candle flame. 未 is the Earth of high summer. Its month runs from 小暑, the Minor Heat, in early July, through 大暑, the Major Heat, to 立秋 in early August: the hottest stretch of the year.

Inside 未 are three hidden stems: 己, yin Earth, the main one, with 丁 and 乙 beside it. So 丁 appears in the year twice, once as its stem and once inside its branch. 2026 was Fire over Fire. 2027 keeps the Fire on top and sets it on Earth, and since Fire produces Earth, the year's stem feeds its own branch.

What 丁未 brings to each day master

As with any year, what 丁未 is to you depends on your day master. Each half of the pillar arrives as one of the Ten Gods:

Last year was simpler. 丙午 is Fire in both halves, so for each day master both halves played the same part. This year arrives as two relations, and they're linked: because Fire produces Earth, the stem's relation always feeds the branch's. For Wood day masters, Output feeds Wealth. For Fire, Peers feed Output. For Earth, Resource feeds Peers. For Metal, Officer feeds Resource. For Water, Wealth feeds Officer.

Whether that chain is welcome is a question for the strength verdict. A strong Wood day master wants somewhere to spend itself, and a year that turns its output into wealth gives it one. A weak one gets two layers of drain.

One afternoon of 丁未

I noticed this while checking the year's month pillars against the engine. The sixth month of the 丁未 year, from 小暑 on 7 July to 立秋 on 8 August, is itself 丁未. Anyone born in it has the year twice, in the year pillar and the month pillar.

On one day of that month, the day is 丁未 as well: 27 July. And on a 丁 day, the 未 hour, from one to three in the afternoon by local solar time, is 丁未 too. So for two hours on 27 July 2027, from 13:32 to 15:32 by a Seoul clock, a chart is the same pillar four times over: 丁未, 丁未, 丁未, 丁未.

It's rarer than it sounds. Neither of the last two Fire Goat years, 1907 and 1967, had a 丁未 day inside its 丁未 month. The next one falls on 12 July 2087.

Anyone born that day has a Ding Wei 丁未 day pillar and 丁 as their day master. A child born in those two hours also has three more 丁 beside it, all Friends, and four 未 beneath it, each holding 己, the Eating God. It's about as concentrated as a chart can get.

The red goat

The Fire Horse has its superstition. So does the Fire Goat, and it's the same one.

In the Southern Song dynasty, the scholar 柴望 compiled the 丙丁龜鑑, a cautionary record of twenty-one upheavals between the third century BC and the tenth century AD, all of them in 丙午 and 丁未 years. The pair of years became known as 紅羊劫, the red goat calamity: red for the Fire of 丙 and 丁, goat for 未.

A list like that proves less than it seems to. Upheavals were common in those centuries, and a list of the ones that fell in two years out of every sixty means nothing without the ones that fell in the other fifty-eight. The book doesn't count those.

BaZi's own answer is the one it gave the Fire Horse. A year pillar belongs to everyone living through it, so it can't be a verdict on any one of them, which is what a chart cannot tell you in its plainest form.

The example chart in 2027

The chart this blog has used from the start, cast for 04:00 on 28 February 1990 in Seoul, has 甲 as its day master, reads as strong, and needs Earth.

2026 was a busy year for it. The year's 午 repeated the chart's own year branch, formed half-combinations with both of its 寅, and clashed with 子, the day branch. 2027 is quieter. Of the branch relations this site computes, 未 forms one: a six harmony, 六合, with 午, the year branch. Readers who use the harms would add a second, since 未 harms 子, but this site leaves the harms out.

The stem, 丁, is this chart's Hurting Officer, and 未's 己 is its Direct Wealth: Output feeding Wealth, with the Earth the chart needs arriving in the branch.

Where this site stands

The yearly section here follows 立春, like everything else. Until the morning of 4 February 2027, Seoul time, it opens on 丙午, and a switch at the top turns it to the year after: 丁未, broken into its twelve solar-term months, each rated against your natal chart. The written reading stays at the scale of the decade.

A Song-dynasty list of disasters, a rebound in Japan's births, one afternoon in July: the Fire Goat carries whatever people bring to it. What it brings to you is in your chart, not in the animal.