“Magical expertise is not shown by the number of badges you can wear on your sleeve, the number of ‘initiations’ into a variety of groups, lodges, covens or whatever, but by your personal power, your ability to cope in trying situations and your genuine humanity to other people” – Marian Green, ‘The Gentle Arts of Natural Magic’, Thoth Books, 1987.

I’ve been around the pagan community for…a long time now, and in that time have been part of various groups, groves, Orders, colleges, training courses and suchlike. And each one of them has taught me various lessons in different ways of doing pagan stuff – but the singular lesson they all converge on, albeit unintentionally, for me is this:

Don’t outsource your magic.