Four Wastes (Si Fei): a day pillar plus a season, and what the label does not say
Four Wastes (Si Fei) is a Symbolic Star that reads only the day pillar, and the day pillar has to match the season of birth. In spring, the Yin, Mao and Chen months, a Geng Shen or Xin You day counts. In summer, the Si, Wu and Wei months, a Ren Zi or Gui Hai day. In autumn, the Shen, You and Xu months, a Jia Yin or Yi Mao day. In winter, the Hai, Zi and Chou months, a Bing Wu or Ding Si day. The season is the solar-term month, which is the month branch, not the lunar or Gregorian month. The name means the day stem's element is out of season, mostly imprisoned or dead, so it is called waste. Our site treats it as a traditional marker only, outside strength and favorability.
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At a glance
| Season (month branch) | Day pillar that counts | Day branch element |
|---|---|---|
| Spring: Yin, Mao, Chen | Geng Shen or Xin You | Metal, the Day Master's own element |
| Summer: Si, Wu, Wei | Ren Zi or Gui Hai | Water, the Day Master's own element |
| Autumn: Shen, You, Xu | Jia Yin or Yi Mao | Wood, the Day Master's own element |
| Winter: Hai, Zi, Chou | Bing Wu or Ding Si | Fire, the Day Master's own element |
| Any other day or season | Does not count | A near miss is not Four Wastes |
- Four Wastes (Si Fei)
- A day-pillar Symbolic Star that only counts in the matching season
- Symbolic Stars lookup
- The chart result section where our site lists Four Wastes and other traditional markers
- Rooted
- The day branch holds the Day Master's own element, so the Day Master has support underfoot
- In season / out of season
- Whether the month branch's element supports the Day Master or leaves it weak
- Useful element
- The element the whole chart needs, decided by strength and climate first
Common mistakes
- Four Wastes predicts a life of unfinished projects: it is a lookup outside strength and favorability; 26.1% of the 69 charts were strong, and a strong chart uses the same label without the weakness.
- Four Wastes is just another way to say weak: 73.9% were weak, but ordinary out-of-season charts were 79.1% weak, so the label follows the season rather than adding a force.
- Every Geng or Xin day in spring is Four Wastes: that wide version reaches 19.9% of charts; the eight day pillars with the season matching reach 3.5%.
- A matching day pillar is enough: 197 charts had one of the eight day pillars outside its season and do not count; 54.8% of them were strong.
The rule: a day pillar, a season, and no near misses
Four Wastes reads one pillar and one season, and both have to line up. Spring is the Yin, Mao and Chen months and wants a Geng Shen or Xin You day. Summer is Si, Wu and Wei and wants Ren Zi or Gui Hai. Autumn is Shen, You and Xu and wants Jia Yin or Yi Mao. Winter is Hai, Zi and Chou and wants Bing Wu or Ding Si.
The season comes from the solar-term month, not from the lunar or Gregorian date. A Geng Shen day in a summer month is not Four Wastes. Our site shows the result in the “Symbolic Stars lookup” and does not let it touch the strength score or the favorable and unfavorable lists.
All eight day pillars stand on the Day Master's own element
Every one of the eight day branches carries the same element as its day stem, so the Day Master is rooted. Geng Shen, Xin You, Jia Yin and Yi Mao sit on their own Lu (the branch where the day stem is at full strength, its own element). Ren Zi and Bing Wu sit on the Yang Ren (Yang Blade) position, the peak of their own element. Gui Hai and Ding Si sit on Rob Wealth. In all 69 charts, the day branch was the Day Master's own Companion family, 100%.
A harsh season does not remove that root. The month may leave the Day Master out of season, but the day branch still holds its own element. That is why the word waste should not be read as “too weak to use”.
The weakness is real, but the season explains it
Four Wastes charts are mostly weak, yet they look like other charts whose Day Master is simply out of season. Of the 69 charts, 26.1% were strong and 73.9% were weak. The 1126 non-special charts with an out-of-season Day Master were 20.6% strong and 79.1% weak.
The Useful element lands in almost the same place. After removing 3 special structures, the 66 Four Wastes charts took Resource 62.1%, Companions 12.1%, Output 12.1%, Wealth 7.6% and Officer/Killings 6.1%. The 1126 out-of-season charts took Resource 63.6%, Companions 15.7%, Officer/Killings 7.9%, Output 7.5% and Wealth 5.2%.
The name adds little beyond the season. The Day Master's own element was listed unfavorable in 21.2% of the 66 charts, against 17.9% of the 1126. Read strength and the Useful element first; the label follows.
Two older versions of the rule, one narrower and one wider
The narrow version keeps only four day pillars: spring Geng Shen, summer Ren Zi, autumn Jia Yin and winter Bing Wu. That group was 31 charts, 1.6%. Our site takes all eight day pillars in the table above, so it sits between the two older versions.
The wide version looks only at the day stem, and it sweeps in nearly a fifth of all charts. Spring Geng or Xin, summer Ren or Gui, autumn Jia or Yi, winter Bing or Ding gives 19.9%. With our eight day pillars the count is 69 charts, 3.5%.
Some spring-born Geng Shen and Xin You charts are not out of season after all. Eleven charts, 15.9% of the 69, had a Day Master element in season, and all of them were born in a Chen month. Chen Earth generates Metal, so Metal is Xiang there, a kind of in-season state.
A matching day pillar with the wrong season is not Four Wastes
The day pillar alone is not enough, and 197 charts show why. Those 197 had one of the eight day pillars but were born out of the matching season, so they are not Four Wastes. In that group 54.8% were strong.
Compare that with 47.4% strong among the 1931 charts that are not Four Wastes. The wrong-season group is not weak at all. The season condition is the part that does the work, not the eight names.
Two real charts
Wu Yin (戊寅) · Jia Zi (甲子) · Ding Si (丁巳) · Ren Yin (壬寅) (female, Jan 5, 1999, 04:00, Beijing)
This is a typical Four Wastes chart: a winter-born Ding Fire with a root under the day branch. True solar time was 03:40. The birth was before the 1999 Xiao Han, so it is still a Zi month, and before Li Chun, so the year pillar is still Wu Yin. The Day Master is Ding Fire, born in a Zi month; Fire is dead in winter, so it is out of season, and the day pillar Ding Si is the winter Four Wastes day. The stems are Wu Hurting Officer, Jia Direct Resource and Ren Direct Officer. The branches are Yin Direct Resource, Zi Seven Killings, Si Rob Wealth and Yin Direct Resource.
The scoring gives Officer/Killings 3, Resource 1.9, Companions 1.05, Output 0.75 and Wealth 0.3, and the chart is weak (support 2.95, pressure 4.05). Useful element Wood (Resource), favorable Fire, unfavorable Water and Metal.
The day branch Si Fire is Ding Fire's Rob Wealth, which is the root the name cannot take away. The season does not help, and the month command Zi Water, Seven Killings, presses the Day Master, so it is weak; the Useful element falls on the two Yin Wood Resource characters. Four Wastes only tags “winter Ding Fire”. What to add is still decided by the Useful element, Wood.
Geng Xu (庚戌) · Wu Yin (戊寅) · Geng Shen (庚申) · Bing Xu (丙戌) (male, Feb 9, 1970, 20:45, Beijing)
Here the same label sits on a strong chart, which shows that Four Wastes is not another word for weak. True solar time was 20:16, and the 1970 Li Chun had passed, so the year pillar is Geng Xu and the month pillar Wu Yin. The Day Master is Geng Metal, born in a Yin month; Metal is imprisoned in spring, so it is out of season, and the day pillar Geng Shen is the spring Four Wastes day, which even the narrow version counts. The stems are Geng Companion, Wu Indirect Resource and Bing Seven Killings. The branches are Xu Indirect Resource, Yin Indirect Wealth, Shen Companion and Xu Indirect Resource.
The scoring gives Resource 2.2, Officer/Killings 1.75, Companions 1.55, Wealth 1.2 and Output 0.3, and the chart is strong (support 3.75, pressure 3.25). Useful element Wood (Wealth), favorable Fire and Water, unfavorable Metal.
The season does not help, but the support around the Day Master is heavier. The day branch Shen Metal sits on Geng's own Lu, the year stem Geng is a Companion, and the two Xu Earth plus the month stem Wu Earth are Resource feeding the Day Master. That is why the chart is strong and wants Wood Wealth. The day pillar is called waste; in this chart it is anything but.
Data: how often the eight day pillars meet the right season
Our eight-pillar lookup found 69 charts, 3.5% of the 2,000, and it matched the “Symbolic Stars lookup” on all 2,000 charts. The eight day pillars split as Xin You 12, Gui Hai 11, Ren Zi 9, Ding Si 9, Geng Shen 8, Bing Wu 8, Jia Yin 6 and Yi Mao 6.
The narrow older version is smaller and the wide one is much larger. Counting only spring Geng Shen, summer Ren Zi, autumn Jia Yin and winter Bing Wu gives 31 charts, 1.6%. Counting only the day stem gives 19.9%, nearly one chart in five.
The season, not the name, moves the strength numbers. The 1126 non-special charts with an out-of-season Day Master were 20.6% strong and 79.1% weak; the 1931 charts that are not Four Wastes were 47.4% strong. The 197 charts with a matching day pillar outside its season were 54.8% strong.
The Useful element follows the same pattern. In the 66 Four Wastes charts without special structures, Resource was Useful 62.1%, Companions 12.1%, Output 12.1%, Wealth 7.6% and Officer/Killings 6.1%; the 1126 out-of-season charts took Resource 63.6%, Companions 15.7%, Officer/Killings 7.9%, Output 7.5% and Wealth 5.2%.
Simulated charts: our BaZi calculator generated 2,000 random birth times (birth years 1950–2010 uniformly random, random birth time, half male/half female, Beijing true solar time), cast each chart and judged strength and the Useful element by traditional rules, then counted the results. These are simulated results, not a survey of real people and not a measure of prediction accuracy. Four Wastes was counted only when the day pillar was one of the eight listed and the solar-term month matched; the day pillars were also counted by season, the narrow and wide versions were counted separately, and strength, the Useful element and the favorability of the Day Master's own element were tallied inside the groups. Calculation version: our BaZi calculator after the Oct 15, 2026 update (the same rules the site uses now; rechecked with site version v73 on Oct 20, 2026), random seed 20261014. To reproduce: rerun the same version with the same seed and the results match exactly; you can check any single chart by entering the same birth time in our BaZi calculator.
Common view vs. our view
| Common view | Our view | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Four Wastes day people start things and never finish, so they achieve nothing | It is a marker, and strength comes first | Of the 69 charts, 26.1% were strong; example 2 is a strong Four Wastes chart |
| A spring birth with a Geng or Xin day is Four Wastes | The whole day pillar and the season both have to match | The day-stem-only version catches 19.9%; our eight day pillars are 3.5% |
| Four Wastes means the Day Master is weak | Most Four Wastes charts are weak because they are out of season | Weak 73.9% against 79.1% for ordinary out-of-season charts; Resource as Useful 62.1% against 63.6% |
| A matching day pillar is enough to call it Four Wastes | The season has to match too | 197 charts had the day pillar but the wrong season, and 54.8% of them were strong |
FAQ
Are people born on a Four Wastes day unsuccessful for life?
No. Four Wastes is a traditional marker, and we keep it outside strength and favorability. In the 2,000 charts we cast, 69 (3.5%) matched, and 26.1% of those were strong. Whether a chart is strong or weak, and which element is useful, comes from the four pillars and the month command, not from a day-pillar name. A life is also shaped by work, health and choices.
How do I resolve Four Wastes in my BaZi?
There is nothing to break. We do not treat the name as a curse, so no ritual is needed. Read the Day Master's strength, then the Useful element and the favorable and unfavorable elements. If the chart is weak, support it; if it is strong, drain or control it. The element you add is the Useful element, not a remedy for a label.
Is a Geng Shen day born in spring always Four Wastes?
Yes under our rule, because Geng Shen is the spring day pillar and the Yin, Mao and Chen months are spring. Under the narrow older version it also counts. Born in a Chen month, however, Chen Earth generates Metal, so Metal is Xiang, and the Day Master is not fully out of season; 11 of the 69 charts were in that state.
Which is more serious, Four Wastes or Ten Evil Great Defeat?
Both are lookups from the day pillar and both are reference only on our site; neither enters strength or favorability. Ten Evil Great Defeat has its own entry. Comparing two labels does not tell you more than reading the four pillars, the month command and the Useful element.