The psychological power needed to enact the transformation came from Ceridwen’s discontent with her son Morfran. It wasn’t Morfran who wanted to change.

The magic of the potion was redirected from Ceridwen’s intended target because she hadn’t taken the care to understand Morfran’s character on its own terms. In fact, Morfran was quite capable in his own, strange way, and would later go on to represent the family at King Arthur’s court without any magical assistance from his mother.

The cauldron gave form to the fluid.

Gathering the ingredients isn’t enough. It’s in the process that the most substantial benefit is accrued.

The Magic of Slow Work

These days, the sprint has become the standard pace of business, and not just for startups. Too often, corporate teams dash from sprint to sprint in a cruel pace that never ends.

The managers who engineer these harried runs believe that they’ll receive increased productivity as a result. They think they’re being efficient. It never works for long, though. Human beings can’t be run like machines. A sprint is supposed to be of short duration, and rarely performed. Teams that are pushed into repeated sprints don’t get faster. They just get run down.

There’s a special, tender kind of quality to work that is allowed to cook slowly. Just as slow-cooked food absorbs the flavors of the ingredients with which it is prepared, work that is done at a measured pace absorbs more of the social context in which it takes place. Slow work is thus more in tune with the larger concerns of consumers and corporate culture alike.