O do not tell the priest of our rite,
for he would call it a sin:
but we've been out in the woods all night,
a-conjuring Summer in.
An e-mail went around to the coven: Can anyone attend the NoW Zoom meeting on Friday?
(NoW—National Organization of Witches—isn't the organization's real name.)
Now, wait a minute: let me get this straight. A national organization of witches is holding a business meeting on Midsummer's Eve?
Well, I suppose that one could find a certain amount of precedent for such a thing in Received Tradition. According to the Lore, most successful mythological invasions of Ireland took place either at Samhain or at Bealtaine. It makes a certain amount of sense to begin an important endeavor on a Day of Power.
I wish I could believe that such logic underlies NoW's Midsummer's Eve business meeting. Alas, though, I fear that the main motivator here is the logic of pragmatism: in our time and place, most pagan holidays get deferred to the nearest Saturday.
Well, the pagan world is a world of graduated values. It's better to do than not to do. Accordingly, the holiday waits until it's convenient for people to get together.
You'll gather that I don't wholly approve of such Paganisms-of-Convenience. There's something about such a cavalier approach to timing that seems to me, frankly, un-pagan. Is our paganism something that we do in our heads, or does it connect us with Something Real Out There? Is three nights into the Wane really still Full Moon?