Celestial stem

The celestial stem is like a special code that ancient people in China made up a long, long time ago to help keep track of the years. They would use a sequence of special names for the 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches to assign a different name to each year. They believed that the cycle of the celestial stem and earthly branch would repeat itself every 60 years. So when you hear someone say that this year is the year of the Ox, they are actually referring to the celestial stem. The stem and branch combination is also believed to have some influence on a person’s character and destiny according to Traditional Chinese astrology.