Neil Armstrong’s BaZi: A Candle Flame in Midsummer, and a Zi–Wu Clash

Armstrong earned his pilot’s license at 16, before he had a driver’s license. He flew for the Navy in the Korean War, tested the hypersonic X-15, handled a near-fatal emergency on the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, and in July 1969 became the first person to set foot on the Moon. His birth time is on his birth certificate, and the chart comes out as Geng-Wu, Gui-Wei, Ding-Hai, Geng-Zi: Ding Fire born in high summer, with the year branch Wu clashing the hour branch Zi and Gui Water (Seven Killings) on the month stem clashing the Day Master. Our engine reads it as balanced. The most interesting thing about this chart is that the most famous year of his life was not a good year by the chart.

Birth data: a birth certificate, and two ways the Zi hour can fall

The birth certificate gives 0:31 a.m. on 5 August, and the Astro-Databank birth data collection rates it AA, its top grade. In 1930 time zones across Ohio were not uniform, and Wapakoneta lies far west of the Eastern zone’s standard meridian. On Eastern time, true solar time slips back to just after 11 p.m. on 4 August; on Central time it is just after midnight on 5 August. Both fall in the Zi hour (11 p.m. to 1 a.m.), and this site starts the new day at the beginning of the Zi hour, so anything after 23:00 already counts as the next day. Either way the BaZi is identical, and the day pillar is Ding-Hai, the pillar of 5 August.

The Four Pillars and the Ten Gods

Our strength engine scores season, roots, visible stems, and the balance of Resource and companions against Wealth, Officer and Output; below 0.35 reads weak, above 0.55 reads strong.

A score of 0.366: balanced, leaning weak. The Ding Fire has roots in Wu and Wei, but the two Geng Metal Wealth stars drain it, Gui Water (Seven Killings) attacks it, and Zi Water clashes away the Wu Fire. The favorable elements are Wood (Resource) and Fire (companions); the unfavorable ones are Metal (Wealth) and Water (Officer).

Seven Killings clashing the Day Master and the Zi–Wu clash are traditionally read as “a life spent handling pressure and crisis”. The work of a test pilot and astronaut is, by definition, keeping calm in extreme situations, and the way he handled Gemini 8 and the lunar landing is still taught today. But that is a comparison made after the fact.

Luck pillars

For a man born in a yang year (the year stem Geng is yang), the luck pillars run forward, starting at about age 2.

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

His astronaut years, 1961–1970, fall in the Ding-Hai luck pillar: the stem Ding Fire is a Friend and favorable, while the branch Hai Water is Direct Officer and unfavorable. Favorable above and unfavorable below can be read as “his own ability was fully there, and so was the pressure underneath”. In those ten years he flew twice in space, and both flights were matters of life and death.

Where it does not fit: the Moon-landing year

1966 is a Bing-Wu year, Fire on both stem and branch, and entirely favorable. That year he handled a crisis in orbit that nearly spun out of control and got home safely, and afterwards he was chosen to command Apollo 11. Yet the most famous year of his life, 1969, is Ji-You: the stem Ji Earth (Eating God) is neither favorable nor unfavorable, and the branch You Metal (Indirect Wealth) is unfavorable. The most important step in human history fell in a year that was neutral and unfavorable.

We set that year out exactly as it is. Favorable and unfavorable years describe the elemental structure of a year, not the scale of an achievement. The Moon landing was the work of some 400,000 people over ten years; which year it happened in depended on engineering schedules and the space race, not on the commander’s annual pillar.

Where does the chart miss his real life?

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.

Armstrong’s Life Palace is empty (in the Wei palace), so it borrows from the opposite Travel Palace, and the Travel Palace holds Tai Yang with the Lu transformation and Tai Yin with the Ke transformation, plus Tian Kui. The Travel Palace describes how a person appears out in the world and far from home. Tai Yin is the Moon, and Ke is the transformation of fame. A man who entered history by setting foot on the Moon has a “Moon” carrying the fame transformation sitting in his Travel Palace: of all the parallels in this series it is the one that looks most like wordplay, so we note it, but please read it as hindsight. The Career Palace holds Tian Tong with the Ji transformation alongside Di Jie and Di Kong, and the Wealth Palace holds Tian Ji and Ju Men. After the Moon landing he deliberately stepped out of the spotlight and went back to teaching at a university; for a man whose Life Palace is empty and whose light shines entirely “out there”, readers can make of that choice what they will.

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.

The Sun is in Leo, its domicile, and the chart ruler Mercury is in Virgo, also its domicile: both are in the signs where they are strongest, and both fall in the 4th house. The 4th house governs home, roots and private life. A man known to the whole world has his Sun in the most private house of the chart, which sits beside his choice after the Moon landing to turn down most invitations and go quietly back to Ohio to teach. Mercury in Virgo values precision and technique, and he was an engineer turned test pilot, famous for calm and exactness. The Moon is in Sagittarius, the sign of long journeys and exploration. A note on timing: his Ascendant sits very close to a sign boundary. Born just 9 minutes earlier, he would have Taurus rising instead of Gemini; if the clock was on Central time, the Ascendant is still Gemini.

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.

Does Seven Killings show in your chart?

The four pillars, strength score and luck pillars on this page all come from the same engine as the chart on our home page. Enter your birth date to see whether Seven Killings and Direct Wealth show in your stems, whether your Day Master can carry them, and which elements are favorable for you. If you were born around the Zi hour, see birth time correction for how the change of day at midnight is handled.