The astrology of a meeting

Prologue 1: We have just finished a period with Mercury retrograde (Rx), the time when the planet Mercury seems to move backwards. This happens about three times a year. Since Mercury is the planet of communication and paperwork, all kinds, its condition can influence everything from relaying a simple telephone message to international computer systems. The keywords for a Mercury Rx period are that such matters will experience misunderstandings, glitches, delays, or false starts. Anything done during a Mercury Rx usually requires extra care and even redoing in order to get things right. Mercury was still retrograde Monday evening where I live.

Prologue 2: The influence of a void-of-course (VOC) Moon is often compared to Mercury Rx. The hours the Moon is no longer forming an aspect to any other planet, and will not form a new aspect until it changes sign, are considered to be a time during which there is confusion, miscommunication, or lack of action. In horary astrology (the only truly predictive branch of astrology), a VOC Moon means "nothing will come of the matter". One of my readers found that companies formed during a VOC period, went belly-up within few years. The Moon was void-of-course all Monday evening where I live. (See my calendars, in English or Norwegian.

The meeting

In Norway, there are building societies, originally formed to pool resources so that one can build affordable housing. Individual building projects (like ours, a collection of 19 apartment buildings) are called "borettslag" (literally: "right-to-reside" association), or housing association, made up of shareholders. The individual owner does not own the buildings or grounds, but instead owns a share (one per unit). Housing associations are handled administratively and financially by their own steering committee, elected among and by the shareholders, and we have bylaws.

Now, every year there is a regular shareholder's meeting of the local association, with a standard agenda to follow, elections, and voting on any matters that involve large or extraordinary expenditures and/or changes to the property or buildings. After having not attended a shareholder's meeting for several years, I decided to make a show this year. I must've been psychic, because it turned out that there had been a campaign among the neighbors to oust our current steering committee foreman, a man who's been foreman for more than the 18+ years I've been living here.

So we packed our club house to the rafters, over 140 shareholders and proxies present (usually we're around 60), called the meeting to order shortly after 7:00 pm, and immediately, some contrary people interrupted the process to claim that the process was not going exactly according to the bylaws.

After over 2.5 hours of arguing, interruptions, as well as normal business according to the agenda, we had a break, and then started our elections. With a bare majority, our foreman of over 20 years was no longer foreman.

It was heady. It was comical. It was irritating. It was confusing. It was unnecessary. The one issue that was the real reason behind the "coup" was parking. We don't have enough parking spaces for everyone, so a few years ago, the steering committee opted for zone parking, rather than assigning individual spaces. Apparantly, not everyone is happy with that. Well, we voted to not discuss that particular point on the agenda, as it would take another hour to go through details, have a discussion, vote, etc. and it was already close to 10:30 pm and we were all weary. Anyway, the bylaws require the steering committee to quickly call an extraordinary shareholder's meeting in such cases, so the issue would be delayed only a couple of weeks.

As I went home after the meeting, listening to the comments of my neighbors, getting a better picture of the background of some the events earlier, and noting the injustices and weaseling behavior of some, I wondered how the new steering committee would actually fare, elected as it was with Mercury retrograde and the Moon void-of-course. By all astrological signs, the results would not stick, though at the time I didn't see why not; it all seemed above board.

Yesterday evening, with Mercury once again direct (forward-moving) and the Moon not void-of-course, a next-door neighbor showed up with a petition to call an extraordinary shareholder's meeting in order to hold another election, claiming the discussions at the first meeting had been too disruptive and misleading. I grinned widely, realizing that astrology does work, and signed.