The Moon right now
This is the sky itself: what the Moon is doing at this moment, and the same for everyone reading it. What it means for one particular chart is a different question, and the answer is further down.
tldr: Today, the lunar date is 初五, the Day Officer is 定 Dìng (Settle), the Moon is in the mansion 亢 Neck, inside 立冬 Lì Dōng (Start of Winter).
The Moon Today, In The Chinese Almanac
The 通勝 (Tōng Shū, “the book that knows everything”) is the Chinese almanac, and it reads a day by several columns at once. A note on its clock: 23:00 — the hour of the Rat (子時). The Chinese day begins an hour before midnight, so between 11pm and midnight the almanac has already moved on to tomorrow.
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The lunar date, 初五
(day 5 of the month)
The Chinese calendar is lunisolar: a month runs from one new moon (朔, shuò) to the next, and the days are simply numbered from it. So the date itself tells you the Moon, 初一 is new, and 十五 is full or nearly so. No other calendar on this site works that way.
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The lunar mansion, 亢
Kàng (Neck)
二十八宿 (èrshíbā xiù) are the twenty-eight lunar mansions, the almanac's own Moon column, and the closest counterpart anywhere to the Indian nakshatra. The Moon crosses one a night, so they turn in a fixed four-week cycle.This is the 2th. It carries the luminary 金 Venus and the animal 龍, the dragon, a stiff-necked mansion, read as bringing dispute and illness; not for launches. Its weekday is Friday, which is where the seven-day week comes from in this system.
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The Day Officer, 定
Dìng (Settle)
建除十二神 (jiàn-chú shí'èr shén), the twelve Day Officers, are a day-quality cycle: each day of the twelve is for something. There is no Western or Indian equivalent, it is the almanac's most practical column, and the one people actually plan by.a settling day, good for agreements, planting and putting down roots. In short: a day for agreements and putting down roots.
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The day pillar, 辛卯
(Xīn Mǎo)
干支 (gānzhī) pairs one of ten heavenly stems with one of twelve earthly branches, giving a sixty-term cycle that names days, months and years alike. Today's stem is 辛, Metal yin; its branch is 卯, the Rabbit.
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The solar term, 立冬 Lì Dōng (Start of Winter)
The 24 節氣 (jiéqì) divide the Sun's year into fortnights and are the farmer's calendar. They are the solar half of a lunisolar system, fixed to the Sun, not the Moon, and they are what stop the lunar months drifting away from the seasons. The next is 小雪 Xiǎo Xuě (Minor Snow), on 22 November.
What This Means For You
This is the almanac's sky, the same for everyone. Laid over your own chart it becomes how these days meet your own four pillars, the stems and branches of your birth, and which of them clash or harmonise with your day master.