there are a few charts for australia.. reading nic campions book of world horoscopes he mentions bernadette brady offering a view that the referendum in western australia on july 31st 1900 which had polls open at 9am and close at 7pm which result was announced at 1020pm in perth made the country australia a fait acompli.. - page 43 nic campion 2004 edition.. with that in mind here is a chart for this time...

the dasa in effect here is moon dasa from june 18 2019 til april 18 2020 when it becomes moon with mars as sub lord dasa.. what one can note is the moon is under heavy affliction from both malefics - saturn and mars in the natal chart.. while the aspect degress are not exact, all of it coaleses around the 7th house and sign virgo..

the muntha, or profection lord for the present year - 2019 is aquarius rising.. this is a 12th house profection to the pisces ascendant in the chart..

below is the natal chart krishnamurti ayanamsha..



here is the solar return for 2019



when you put the muntha for this year 2019 - aquarius - in the solar return chart you get a 6th house muntha.. it is also an 8th house position to the sun-venus conjunction.. and it is being aspected from the saturn via the 3rd house aspect and from mars via the 8th house aspect.. in fact, there are 4 planets in cancer in the solar return chart, so that the muntha is 8th house to them all..

solar return moon conjunct mars - this is ruler of 11th with ruler of the 3rd and 8th houses - a strong negative for the people of australia... the sun - venus conjunction brings together the 12th house ruler with the 2nd/9th house ruler - again a net negative combo here.. the opposition of mercury-saturn on the nodal axis is perhaps the most telling.. this brings together the 1st/10th house ruler mercury with the 5th/6th house ruler saturn in a conflictual set up.. all together a lot of negatives outweighing much of any positives in it all.

when you do a biwheel with the natal chart suggested by brady and the solar return on the outside it looks like what i have shared below... the 4/10 axis is highlighted and where much of the stress is seen.. 4th house - home - and 10th house - poor leadership - all suggested with saturn-nodal axis hitting all the angles - both natal and solar return - as they are reversed... apparently having the descendant rising in the 2019 solar return is considered unfavourable as well.. as i mentioned, the muntha is in the natal 12th and the 2019 solar return 6th.. all considered a strong negative, along with all else i am pointing out.. neither does having the 8th lord - venus - highlighted by the solar return midheaven..



a very unfortunate situation in australia and i am very saddened by all the loss of life in the animal kingdom, not to mention all the loss of houses and property to the people of australia... i welcome feedback on it all.. thanks - james

in charaks book '''a textbook of varshaphala'' vedic technicque of the tajika or annual horoscopy -he explains the idea of the lord of the year for an annual chart which is different from how it is done in the west.. ordinarily the lord of the year in the west is based off the profection lord of the year - in the above example saturn which rules aquarius would be considered the lord of the year for australia here..

in charaks book he explains the 5 ingredients to deciding what the lord of the year is..

1 muntha pati ( muntha is profection sign) the lord of the sign in which the muntha is located - saturn in the chart i have chosen here for australia..

2 jamma lagna pati - lord of the ascendant in the birth chart - jupiter as ruler of pisces here

3 varsha lagna pati - lord of the ascendant of the annual chart - mercury as ruler of virgo here.

4 tri- rashi pati.. this is a hellenistic concept basically dependent on whether it is a day or night chart and which goes into what sign is rising ( lagna ) in the annual chart .. it is a different system then how we view triplicity rulers from hellenistic era astrology... based on the table provided in charaks book - it is a diurnal chart with virgo rising.. day time virgo rising is ruled by mercury in the above chart...( nighttime would have been venus.)

5 dina-ratri pati -this is also a hellenistic concept basically dependent on whether it is a day or night chart which goes into what sign the sun or moon are located in.. it is a different system then how we view triplicity rulers from hellenistic era astrology... based on the table provided in charaks book - it is a diurnal chart with sun in cancer which is ruled by venus in day time charts..

so, we have 5 considerations and we have 4 different possible lords of the year.

1 - saturn
2 - jupiter
3 - mercury
4- mercury
5 - venus

generally when 1 planet is stronger in the 5 considerations, it ends up being the lord of the year.. however, the planet has to aspect the ascendant in the annual chart.. in the above example mercury aspects the ascendant from the 10th house.. ( tajika system is not the same as parashara or jaimini and allows for more common aspects used in the west).. if the strongest of the 5 does not aspect the ascendant, a different one has to be found.

there are a number of rules listed in the book for finding the lord of the year.. it is interesting many years ago a friend from india who was very knowledgeable on indian astrology explained to me the difference between western astrology and indian astrology.. the difference was largely about having to learn a great number of rules! i am finding this out now as i immerse myself in indian astrology at least 25 years after having this conversation with Arun from many years ago!

this book by charak is a really great book as i see it, as it offers a more sophisticated system for arriving at the lord of the year, taking into consideration a number of factors beyond just the profection lord for consideration.. i am almost finished reading this book and am preparing to read the following one by charak - predictive techniques in varshaphala - when i finish with this one... i need to work with examples to get more understanding on the system / methodology but am moving forward in my studies!

so, what does it mean to have mercury as lord of the year for the australia chart here?
mercury is strong by being placed in gemini in the 10th house, but it is tarnished to a good degree by being conjunct the RKA - rahu ketu axis and in opposition to saturn.. it is also stationary about to get direct in 22 hours.. i ordinarily view a stationary planet as powerful and most of indian astrology under parashara and jaimini does too, but tajika views it more like western astrology as a negative... in fact, tajika shares much in common with the mainstream held views of western astrology as i read it..

in looking at the 2019 annual chart, or solar return or varshaphala, i tried animating the chart to see where mercury is situated for around this time... below is a chart for jan 11th 2020 - the annular lunar eclipse... mercury in this chart rules the 8th and 11th and is a malefic in scorpio rising chart as i understand it..



the 2 charts - solar return 2019 and the lunar eclipse chart overlapped in a biwheel look like this..



as one can see, the position of mercury in the lunar eclipse is in the same critical area of the eclipse and also very close to a conjunction with saturn... this seems to suggest to me that the hardship experienced by australia in all of these fires has hopefully reached a climax and will subside.. maybe i am being overly optimistic here, but aside from the novelty of working with all these charts, especially the transit chart to the eclipse date is interesting, if nothing else...

i am not sure why the charts i have posted in this link look questionable...