Thursday, December 24, 2009

One For the Magic Bean Buyers



“If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer.
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
for we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in! Come in!” -- Shel Silverstein

I am a dreamer, yes, but a dreamer with an extraordinarily hard head; which inhibits me during magic-bean transactions. Tom Robbins once wrote, "You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans." I'm always all, "But I might need this cow! Do those beans come with any sort of a written guarantee? Anyway I never purchase magic off the internet, it's unwise."
It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, my favorite of the year; a time for quiet reflection and for planning. One of the things I ponder is the best direction to take Fine Mess Pottery. The plans that I made last year worked out well: I made more stuff and as a result I sold more stuff. I can't help but wonder how far I could push that equation.  If I trade my cow - the IPTOG - for the magic beans of full-time self-employment, how high might that beanstalk grow?

4 comments:

Patricia Griffin Ceramics said...

I am one who wants to have my cake and eat it too... or want to keep a bird in the hand... or is that beans in the hand?

Anyway, I totally am with you on the security thing. I'm still holding on to what I call my "paycheck" work and also doing my studio and gallery. But, gradually, the studio work is taking over as I release the rest. Step at a time for me.

Happy new year!

Felicia Kramer said...

Great quote! My quote: "It's not enough to be busy; what are you busy about?" I'm re-evaluating also. All my "busy-ness" this past year didn't bring me the results I wanted so how to re-allocate my time to get better results ... that's the question.

Linda Starr said...

Love the color of those beans, just the other day I was at the grocery store and saw some beautiful very pale yellow beans and thought what a glaze that color would be.

This time of year is a time of reflection for me and for planning for the new year.

I too am a dreamer and believer in magic and I think believing is half the battle and then following through. My problem is not going off on tangents. I hope to contain some of that constructively when I get resettle.

I look forward to seeing where the magic takes you.

Darcy said...

I know this is an old blog entry but I just have to say that I have both the first quote and Felicia's on my classroom door! Love them both, oh and I'm usually trying to sell magic beans to my students :D