Also known as: Yin Water · Dew Water · Rain Water
Gui closes the cycle of Ten Stems. It is yin water — morning dew, drifting mist, the rain that soaks slowly into earth. Where Ren rushes, Gui infiltrates. Gui Day Masters are typically introspective, perceptive, reflective; they observe before they act, listen before they speak, and influence subtly rather than directly. Many counselors, scholars, and meditative artists carry strong Gui.
Gui pairs with 戊 in 戊癸合化火 — gentle dew touching the great mountain and igniting distant fire, often read as wisdom that takes long to mature but eventually transforms. Gui welcomes warmth (丙) to evaporate it into useful cloud-form and earth (己) to retain it; Gui without warmth turns to ice — quiet but cold and unproductive.
Gui (癸 guǐ) closes the set of ten, and the classical gloss attached to it is kui (揆), to measure or take stock. With winter over and water and soil level again, everything that happened can be counted, which is why calendrical texts describe this position as the point at which things become measurable, a reading Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字 Shuōwén Jiězì) also follows. The core sense is reckoning and a return to zero: the cycle audits itself here, and the next character is Jia (甲 jiǎ), where it all begins again.
Gui's roots differ from Ren's, so go by the hidden stems; the five-phase label is not enough. Zi (子 zǐ) holds Gui as its principal stem, the cleanest root it has; Chou (丑 chǒu) and Chen (辰 chén) each conceal Gui as a residual one. Hai (亥 hài) looks like an obvious home but hides Ren (壬 rén) and Jia, not Gui at all. So for a Gui Day Master, look for Zi first, then Chen and Chou, then for Geng or Xin metal generating water. A Gui born in the Hai month holds seasonal command, which is a different thing from owning a root.
Whether yin stems have their own growth cycle is among the largest structural disagreements in the literature. Under the yang-forward, yin-reverse convention, the table puts Gui's birth stage in Mao (卯 mǎo). Under the shared-cycle convention, yin stems take no separate cycle and Gui begins at Shen (申 shēn) alongside Ren, both being water. The two produce different strength verdicts, which is why the same chart can be called strong in one book and weak in another. When they conflict, the first question is which convention is in use, not which reading is right.
Gui and Ren stand as companion stems, one still and one moving; when both appear, Ren usually shows on the surface while Gui works underneath. With Wu (戊 wù) earth, Gui forms a combination that classical manuals gave a further name, the loveless union, explained through the mismatch between an older yang stem and a younger yin one — an image describing the gap in character, not a verdict of misfortune, and the gloss noted above about insight that matures late reads the same pair from another angle. Worth noting separately: Gui is Seven Killings to Ding (丁 dīng) fire, so a chart that depends on Ding dreads an incoming Gui. These cross-pillar chains often matter more than the Day Master alone.
Gui is habitually downgraded to weak water. A Gui born in the Zi month with Geng or Xin showing is not weak at all; dew describes a mode of action, not a quantity. The second misreading takes the Wu-Gui union as proof that Gui becomes fire. Combination binds, transformation converts, and conversion requires a fire-dominant month with the transformed element strong; otherwise the pair simply holds together. Third, gentleness is also only an image: where water is excessive, Gui can equally stand for prolonged damp, stagnation and cold, which is not nourishment.
Gui is both the end of the stems and the joint to the next round. Paired with the twelve branches it produces the sixty-term cycle, whose final combination is Gui-Hai — water sitting in a water branch, the close of a full turn. Classical writers drew from this the sense of gathering in: settling what is finished and holding back what is not yet due. A Gui year in the luck cycles was traditionally described as a period of stocktaking and quiet before a turn, and not the launch of something new, a symbolic reading rooted in cyclical time.
Not inherently. Polarity describes form, not force. A Gui born in the Zi month, with Zi, Chen or Chou among the branches and Geng or Xin metal generating it, can be very strong, while a rootless Ren can be very weak. The dew imagery describes how Gui acts — by seeping, quietly and continuously — not how much of it there is. Strength is always judged from the month branch, from roots and from what supports it.
In most charts, no. The tradition separates combination from transformation strictly. Combination means the two stems bind and each loses some independence; transformation means one element genuinely converts. Converting to fire normally requires birth in a fire-dominant month, strong fire in the chart, and no competing stem breaking the pair. Where the conditions are unmet the pair is called bound but untransformed, and Gui is still read as water, merely restricted.
Zi holds Gui as its principal hidden stem, the truest root. Chou and Chen each carry Gui as a residual hidden stem. Note that Hai, despite being a water branch, conceals Ren and Jia, with no Gui in it, so a Gui born in Hai holds seasonal command without owning a root there — and the two weigh differently. A Shen-Zi-Chen trine enlarges the whole water frame and lends Gui further strength.
In the Si, Wu and Wei months fire and earth are in command and water is described as evaporating, which older texts call weak water under blazing fire. The reading checks for roots first, then for Geng or Xin metal to generate water, the usual rescue for a summer Gui. With no metal or water and heavy fire and earth, the chart is treated as one-sided. Note that damp earth such as Chou and Chen stores water while dry earth such as Wei and Xu drains it.
Because two growth-stage conventions coexist. The yang-forward, yin-reverse table runs yin stems backwards and puts Gui's birth in Mao. The shared-cycle convention holds that yin stems have no separate cycle, so Gui begins at Shen with Ren, both being water. Both have lineage behind them and both are internally consistent, but they yield different strength verdicts. The practical advice is to apply one convention consistently to a chart and avoid mixing them.