The Market Place + Magic
(A Work in Progress)
A few months ago, I wrote a post about the coded violence of marketing: how we can reclaim ‘Marketing’ from Big Capitalism and the linguistic territory of the adversarial, paramilitary abstract, to renew it as something more tangible, immediate, and kind.
I may have buried the lead on that story.
That piece ended with a vision, one that has been guiding me for these last two years, since I became the caretaker of School of Kind Business and started to dig deep into my imagining of these things.
What follows here might seem idealistic or even a bit goofy to you, but maybe humour me for just a few moments: we need a big dose of the optimistic, smile-inducing imagery to balance the twisty rep that marketing seems to have got for itself.
And so, I invite you to begin by picturing, with me, the ‘market’ circa the Middle Ages: ‘a meeting at a fixed time for buying and selling [provisions],’ and from it the ‘market place,’ i.e. the public building or space where markets are held. (1)
The closest modern Western equivalent I can think of is an autumn farmer’s market, or perhaps a Christmas market in Europe and other parts of the world. It is a contained space, either indoors or in the fresh air, colourfully decorated, fluid yet with an air of permanence, filled with vendors and booths offering goods and services. There are samples, conversations, entertainments, music. There is food, and sometimes wine, and a feeling of high energy and conviviality.
This market place can be a space in our imaginations and hearts where, even if we are ‘meeting’ online, we approach each person with unattached openness and humility. Do they desire my help, or not? What is the exchange of energy that might flow between us? Is it a smile, a small sample of soup, or a decade of ongoing partnership? We remember that we might meet each and every person here in the market place again next week, and we are therefore called to cultivate a relationship of kindness and mutual support. Because I need your pumpkins, and you need my beeswax candles.
You may not be the only one selling pumpkins at the market. But since yours are perfectly-shaped orange food pumpkins, and the ones at the next stall are green and just wild enough to look funky in a modern autumn centrepiece, it’s cool. There might be another orange pumpkin seller, too, but hers are miniature and sweeter — more suitable for pies — while yours are bigger and bolder-flavoured, and work better in soup. You can relax, knowing that your big-bold-pumpkin-soup-loving neighbours will clear out your stall every week, and the sweet miniature pumpkin seller will never go empty-handed or hungry either, because some people are suckers for tiny adorable veg.
It is clear to each of us that there is enough, for everyone. All you bold- and green- and mini- pumpkin sellers can share your best compost fertilizer tips with each other without worry. So we all get shinier, tastier squash.
There is never any shame here about showing up, sharing our samples, or calling out our offerings. We are known, here. We are held in warmth and affection. We have earned the right to tell our stories. When we take a weekend off, we are missed. Folks don’t just walk past that empty pumpkin soup cauldron, and push on to the next stall. They tape a sticky note to your deserted counter top, asking you to hurry back.
There is more to this market place than mere exchange of goods and services. I know myself to be held, and holding others, in this space — a member of the community. We share conversations, laughter, information. We collaborate. My beeswax tea lights look very nice in the jack-o-lanterns carved from your pumpkins, and the organic hippie moms love that the beeswax clears the air rather than producing toxic gack at their kids’ parties, so we make a lit-up display featuring pumpkins carved to look like the local politicians, and all the kids and their parents stop to laugh and admire. . . including the politicians.
Even if we never purchased anything, or never sold anything, we would be nourished, simply by being here. Because this space is more than just the sum of its parts. There is something else going on here.
Cooperation, neighbourliness, and human kindness. Laughter, self-expression, and peak experience. This market of my imagination is not a place of war, or a zero-sum, win/lose game of monopoly; it is an interdependent, abundant, living event. It is ordinary, extraordinary magic.
(1)https://www.etymonline.com/word/market
Photo by Rosie de la Cruz on Unsplash
