Farmers Markets are inevitable

I get that feeling that the Farmers Market in Stonington is inevitable.  It springs from a deep place in our human psyche and is forced to the surface by insistent and primitive pressures.  It is the absence of a market that is abnormal, not the presence of one. Given the least encouragement, a market will percolate to the top of every society.  Our Saturday market in Stonington is just the most recent local expression of a primal ritual, a modern iteration of three themes: people gathering, good displayed, the assembly held at a set time and place.  That’s why, as 9am approaches on the clock, going to market feels natural, habitual, inevitable. 

Last July, a customer asked me, “Why are you here?”  The simple answer, of course, is “... to sell flowers.”   I opened my mouth to respond, and out tumbled a more profound explanation.

“I’m here because you are,” I said.  We stared at each other a bit stunned.  Then I continued, “If I were not here, you would not be here.  If you were not here, I wouldn’t be here.”

That’s the essence of a market.  We are each here because the other is.  It may be a place where goods are bought and sold, but primarily the market is a place where people meet, where relationships begin, where friendships grow, where projects hatch.  It sometimes seems that goods being bought and sold are but an excuse for the gathering.  

That same week, I discovered a physical metaphor for market.  I found it at yoga class during seated meditation.  I struggle with meditation.  My mind always races ahead to my next activity.  After class I would return to an hour or so of writing.  My struggle of the moment: striving to understand and convey the ancient concept of “markets” to readers whose main reference to the subject is an abstract, intellectual and over-reported (but never quite understood) Stock Market.

Our yoga instructor, Priscilla, suggest we try a mudra.  Palms rest upwards and open on each knee, index fingers and thumbs touch lightly.  Three remaining fingers stretch out to bring energy down the arm and into the bands.

And there it is!  This mudra is a perfect metaphor for markets. The thumb and the index finger represent two centers of energywho come together at a market.  The open palm represents the place where the meeting occurs.  The outstretched fingers and arm represent pathways into and out of the market.  This is the energy-exchange that prevails throughout history.