Barack Obama’s BaZi: You Hour or Xu Hour? 13 Minutes Flip the Favorable Elements

Obama’s birth certificate, released in 2011, gives the time as 7:24 pm. By clock time that is the Xu hour (7–9 pm). But Honolulu lies far west of the standard meridian of the Hawaii time zone, and converted to true solar time (the time by the Sun’s actual position, which BaZi uses) the birth falls at 18:47, in the You hour, only 13 minutes short of the Xu hour. And the two hours produce charts that are nearly opposites: one balanced and favoring Fire and Earth, the other strong and favoring Metal, Wood and Water. This page lays both charts out and checks them against his luck pillars to see which looks more like him. The result goes against our own site’s method.

Birth data: one certificate, two hours

Hawaii’s time zone is based on 150° W, while Honolulu lies at 157.9° W, so the Sun actually arrives about 31 minutes later than the clock says; in early August the equation of time pulls it back roughly another 6 minutes. Together, 7:24 on the clock is 18:47 local solar time. Even with the longitude correction alone and no equation of time, it is 18:53, still the You hour.

In other words, you only get the Xu hour if you cast purely by clock time. Plenty of BaZi sites and teachers do exactly that, which is why most of the Obama charts circulating online are the Xu-hour version.

The two charts side by side

The year, month and day pillars are the same in both: a Ji Earth Day Master born in the Wei month, summer Earth, in season. The whole difference is the hour pillar. The You hour adds a Metal, completing a Metal combination that drains the Earth, so the chart becomes balanced; the Xu hour adds an Earth, the Earth gets thicker, and the chart turns strong. One hour decides whether the chart is “short of Fire and Earth” or has “too much Fire and Earth”.

The table above shows the Ten Gods for our method (You hour). The Xu-hour version differs only in the hour pillar: Jia-Xu 甲戌, stem Direct Officer, hidden stems Wu 戊 (Rob Wealth), Xin 辛 (Eating God), Ding 丁 (Indirect Resource).

Testing against the luck pillars: which chart looks more like him?

When the hour is uncertain, a traditional technique called “fixing the hour by events” takes things that have already happened in a person’s life and checks them against the luck pillars of each candidate chart, to see whose favorable and unfavorable pattern fits better. Since the two charts share the year, month and day pillars, their luck pillars are identical too: for a man born in a yin year (the year stem Xin is yin) they run backwards, starting at age 10.

“fav / unfav” reads the stem first, then the branch: whether each one’s element is favorable (useful), unfavorable, or neither (neutral) for this chart. Each column uses that version’s own favorable and unfavorable elements.

The key is the twenty years from 2000 to 2019, when he went from state senator to president and then to a second term. In the Xu-hour version, both stem and branch of these two luck pillars are favorable throughout; in the You-hour version the stems are neutral and the branches unfavorable. Look at a single year: 2004 was a Jia-Shen year, when within twelve months he went from state senator to national figure and won a U.S. Senate seat. The Xu-hour version has both stem and branch favorable; in the You-hour version, the Jia Wood stem is unfavorable.

Fixing the hour by events favors the Xu hour. In other words, by our site’s true-solar-time method the chart does not fit very well; by clock time it fits better.

So is our method wrong?

We do not plan to drop the true-solar-time rule over one case. Here are three reasons, with the limits stated plainly:

1. The margin is only 13 minutes. Hospital birth times are often a round number or an estimate filled in when the certificate is written up, and an error of ten-odd minutes is not unusual. If he was actually born 13 or more minutes later than recorded, true solar time also lands in the Xu hour. The closer a chart sits to an hour boundary, the less you should trust any single method.
2. One case cannot prove a method. Matching a known life against two charts always carries hindsight risk: knowing he became president, we lean toward the chart that is “strong, with the Officer star combining with the Day Master”.
3. True solar time versus clock time is a long-standing split between schools. We use true solar time because BaZi hours were originally defined by the Sun’s position; but the ancients used sundials and had no such thing as time zones, and today teachers can be found on both sides.

For most readers, the most useful takeaway is this: if your birth time is within 20 minutes of an hour boundary, look at both charts. When you cast a chart on our site it shows the full true-solar-time conversion, so you can see how close you are to the boundary and then check which chart better matches the luck pillars you have already lived through.

Compared with Trump: two presidents with summer Ji Earth

As it happens, Donald Trump is also a Ji Earth Day Master, born in the Wu month; Obama was born in the Wei month, also summer Earth. On the Xu-hour version the two charts share even more: both are strong, favor Metal and Water, and are hot, dry and short of Water, and both have the “Chou-Xu-Wei three punishments”. Trump has Xu and Wei in his natal chart and completes the set when a luck pillar brings Chou; Obama’s Xu-hour version has all three in the natal chart. However different their politics, the underlying charts look alike, which is one more reminder that BaZi describes structure, not political positions and not whether someone is a good or bad person.

Where does the chart miss his real life?

Now: the Ji-Chou luck pillar from 2020

From 2020 he entered the Ji-Chou luck pillar (Friend), Earth in both stem and branch. Once again the two charts disagree: it is favorable for the You-hour version (fav / fav) and unfavorable for the Xu-hour version (unfav / unfav). We make no predictions; we can only say that how this pillar actually plays out could later serve as one more piece of evidence for weighing the two charts.

Zi Wei Dou Shu chart

The same birth time, cast in Zi Wei Dou Shu (San He school, the same engine as our Zi Wei chart tool, using the same true solar time as the BaZi chart above). BaZi weighs the five elements and what the chart favors; Zi Wei looks at which stars fall in which palace. The two systems ask different questions, so the Zi Wei chart is shown on its own first, followed by where it agrees and disagrees with the BaZi reading.

The gold frame is the Life Palace; the shaded palaces are its three-sides-and-four-directions (Wealth, Career, Travel). Solid badges are the birth-year transformations (Lu, Quan, Ke, Ji), red names are the six malefic stars, and the small word after a major star is its brightness.

On our main chart (true solar time, You hour) the Life Palace holds Tan Lang in the Xu branch, brilliant, together with Qing Yang; the Wealth Palace holds Po Jun and the Career Palace Qi Sha, which is the Sha-Po-Lang pattern. On clock time (Xu hour) the Life Palace is empty of major stars, holding Zuo Fu, Lu Cun and Di Jie, and borrows Tian Ji and Ju Men from the opposite palace, with Ju Men carrying Lu; the Career Palace holds Tai Yang and Tai Yin, with Tai Yang carrying Quan. The BaZi section checked the luck pillars backwards and found they support clock time. On the Zi Wei side, the clock-time chart’s “Ju Men with Lu (speech that brings resources) plus Tai Yang with Quan in the Career Palace (public life and authority)” also maps easily onto a man known for his speeches who went into politics. In this case both systems happen to lean toward the clock-time version, but that is still matching after the fact and cannot prove the birth hour.

With the other birth-time versions, the Zi Wei chart becomes:

In BaZi the hour pillar changes every two hours while the day pillar and above stay put. In Zi Wei the Life Palace is set by the lunar month and the hour, so a different hour moves the Life Palace, the Body Palace, the bureau and every major star at once. The same dispute over a birth hour therefore usually matters more for Zi Wei than for BaZi.

For school, leap-month and Zi-hour settings see the Zi Wei chart page; for how the two systems differ see BaZi vs Zi Wei Dou Shu. The hindsight warning applies here too: once you know the outcome, any star can be made to explain it.

Western astrology chart

The same moment of birth, cast as a Western natal chart (tropical zodiac, Placidus houses, the same engine as our natal chart tool). A natal chart uses the sky at the moment of birth, so it needs no true-solar-time correction, but it does need the latitude of the birthplace to fix the Ascendant and the houses. BaZi and Zi Wei are both derived from the Chinese calendar, while a natal chart computes planetary positions directly. Because the three systems start from different places, the chart is listed on its own below, followed by where it agrees with the BaZi and Zi Wei readings.

Aquarius rising with the Sun in Leo: Aquarius gives a first impression that is cool, rational and slightly detached, while a Leo Sun is the core wish to stand on a stage. He is known for a calm manner and for his oratory, and both sides show here. A Gemini Moon processes feelings through words and writing; he published a memoir before entering politics. The chart ruler, Saturn, is in its own sign of Capricorn but sits in the 12th house (behind the scenes, the hidden places), which is traditionally read as real pressure and self-demand kept below the surface. The BaZi discussion above turns on the You-versus-Xu hour dispute; a natal chart uses the sky at the moment of birth and needs no true-solar-time conversion, so the clock-time and true-solar-time versions give one and the same natal chart.

Domicile, exaltation, fall and detriment in brackets are the classical categories for how comfortably a planet works in a sign; they are not verdicts of good or bad. For how to read the big three, the ten planets and aspects, see rising sign, Moon sign, the ten planets and aspects. The hindsight warning applies here too: once you know the outcome, any sign can be made to explain it.

How close is your birth time to an hour boundary?

When you enter your birthplace in the chart tool on our home page, the site shows the full true-solar-time conversion: how many minutes for longitude, how many for the equation of time, and which Chinese hour you land in. If you are less than 20 minutes from a boundary, we suggest casting both hours and checking them against the luck pillars you have already lived through.