‘Tis the season for Holiday Gift Bazaars. And because there are only so many Saturdays in December, they tend to cluster – almost every church in Vermont seems to be bazaar-ing on one of the next few Saturdays.
Tomorrow, Saturday December 1, I’ll be helping my own “church”, Neskaya, with its 4th annual Holiday Gift Bazaar. It may seem bizarre that a node on the network of light, a place so outside the mainstream of American life, would indulge in such a mundane enterprise as a Holiday Bazaar.
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| This is Neskaya on its 10th birthday, a few years ago. |
It is, of course, a bazaar with a difference. One of the main features, remarked upon and cultivated by Kayla Dauphine, the organizing angel of the location, is that since the open area of the building – the dance floor – is roughly circular (I say ”roughly” to save space and give the general idea – it’s actually dodecahedral), the stalls are set out in a circle. Why does this matter? I know that the marketers among you are already visualizing the result. Heads down to examine and enjoy the offerings on the stalls, shoppers fail to notice when they complete a circuit, and continue on, round and round, some of them forever, like the man marooned on the Boston underground in the old Kingston Trio song. Thus they linger longer than intended, spending and buying more!
This bazaar will include free refreshment: chai and cookies, and a strolling minstrel, Anja Daniel, stalwart of the Circle dance community, weaving in and out of shoppers and vendors.
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| Me, Julia, as mad hatter at Neskaya bazaar 2010. I'll have just a few hats there tomorrow. |
Why does a New Age establishment like Neskaya, a circle dance and movement center in Franconia, New Hampshire, indulge in such a plebian exercise as a bazaar? As always with well-planned and executed projects there’s more than one reason.
Firstly, it is a fund-raising exercise. Stall holders are not charged for space, but invited to make a donation to Neskaya proportional to their profit for the day. Voluntary donation rather than set fee is typical of the way Neskaya, and much of the international Circle Dance network, functions – it’s a facet of the “gift economy” in which people give according to their means and receive according to their needs.
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| Linda will be there with a vast array of goods from Bali and other exotic places. |
Secondly, the bazaar is a vernacular way for Neskaya to connect with the population. Any passer-by, any shopper in Franconia, Bethlehem or Littleton, any reader of the local newspaper, can readily understand and connect with an announcement or poster that proclaims: “Holiday Gift Bazaar”, and they might come along. The bazaar is designed, like the very successful free evening of community circle dance held by Neskaya in Franconia Town Hall last August, to reach the general public on their own terms and in their own language, to introduce them to Neskaya and to integrate Neskaya into the mainstream culture and social life of this incomparably beautiful part of the world.
Oh, did I mention that Neskaya sits nestled into the slope of one of the White Mountains, its surrounding trees decked with frost and icicles and redolent of balsam? The blessed balsam scent of winter celebrations will engulf this low-lander later today when she pulls up in the circular driveway and thankfully emerges into the cold clear air to view the sun slowly descending like a golden coin into the treasure chest of silver clouds masking the horizon.
Untold riches lie for the taking in this place and I, for one, am eternally grateful that I have been privileged to dance my way under the parabolic arches and into the world of Neskaya.
And after the bazaar? After the shoppers have departed, the tables are folded up, the floor is cleared? What then? Why then we dance, of course!
