What the almanac says today is good for, what to avoid, and which two-hour periods are Yellow Path. Dates and hours follow your local time; tap any term for a plain-English explanation.
Sat, Oct 17, 2026
Lunar month 9, day 8
Year 丙午 · Month 戊戌 · Day 甲子·Year of the Horse
Cold Dew (began Oct 8)
Good forEngagement, Setting up a bed, Haircut
AvoidWedding, Moving into a new home, Opening a business / first day back, Setting out on a trip, Breaking ground
An activity that is not listed is not automatically favored.
Enter a birth date to see. You don't need a birth time.
Each double-hour lasts two hours, counted in local standard time. A gold dot marks a lucky Yellow Path hour.
Planning something? Use the date finder →
Suitable and avoid: the traditional almanac (Tong Shu) lists activities for each day based on its stem-branch, Day Officer and deities. "Suitable" means tradition favors it that day, "avoid" means tradition advises against it. An activity that is not listed is simply not mentioned — it is not automatically favored.
Clash: each day clashes with one zodiac sign. "Clashes with Horse" means people born in a Horse year tend to be more careful about big events that day; the "sha" direction is the direction tradition says not to face.
Yellow and Black Path: six of the twelve Day Deities (Green Dragon, Bright Hall, Golden Coffer, Heavenly Virtue, Jade Hall, Life Governor) are Yellow Path, the other six are Black Path. People picking a good hour usually start with Yellow Path hours.
Double-hours: the day is split into twelve two-hour periods. The Rat hour begins at 11 pm, so in BaZi anything after 23:00 already counts as the next day, while the almanac itself still changes date at midnight.
A general almanac only describes the day. When people actually plan something, they also check how the day sits with their own chart — for example whether the day's branch clashes with their day branch. Zodiac-only filters look at your birth year and miss this.
Enter a birth date above to see how the day relates to you; it isn't saved to an account. You don't need a birth time: we only state what holds for every possible birth hour, and mark anything that depends on the hour.
They are a cultural date-selection tradition applied by fixed rules, not a scientific forecast, and they cannot guarantee how anything turns out. They are useful for respecting customs and choosing a date everyone feels good about; practical conditions should still come first.
Calendar facts — lunar date, stems and branches, solar terms — should match everywhere. The differences are in the activity lists, because almanac editions weigh deities and rules differently. This almanac follows the widely used Tong Shu rules.
The day's activities follow your local calendar date. Solar-term moments and the twelve double-hours are shown in your own time zone — the Start of Spring might fall before dawn in Beijing but on the previous afternoon in New York.
Everyday dates and the almanac's lists change at midnight. BaZi is different: the Rat hour starts at 23:00, so someone born after 11 pm already has the next day's day pillar. That's why the page shows the almanac's day pillar and the after-11-pm BaZi day pillar separately.
Branches opposite each other clash — Horse (午) clashes with Rat (子). Traditionally the clashing sign takes extra care that day. Your own day branch is more specific than your zodiac sign: two people born in the same year can get completely different results on the same day.
Use the auspicious date finder: choose the event and a date range, add the birth dates of the people involved, and it removes clashing days and hours, then gives you specific date-and-time windows with the reasons.