Following on from last year’s LESS for Lent, we are offering another participatory season of inquiry and practice into consumerism, desire, meaning and behaviour.
We might be feeling a bit bereft right now. Fragile. Looking for meaning and connection. It could seem that a fast is the last thing we need at the moment!
Lent is a traditional season of fasting and contemplation where it is customary to give up luxuries. For this reason, it’s a favourable time to take stock of what we value. Bruised and exhausted by a long lockdown- a necessary act of collective care- we are offered promises of consolation by buying our way back to happiness, and one day getting back to business as usual. But what if you can never have enough of what you never really wanted? Could the context of Lent help us to find ways to satisfy our fundamental human needs in different ways?
LESS for Lent is a season of practices and provocations to explore together new/old ways of building sanctuary, challenge the ideology of perpetual growth, and find ways to live and to be that break free of exploitation, accumulation and extraction.
LESS for Lent is an online and offline collective season including reflection, group work, transformation practices, movement and fasting from the destructive products of consumerism. It is an initiative of the Enough Collective’s Degrowth Commission.
You are invited to take part. LESS for Lent is for everyone regardless of faith or belief who has a willingness to participate. Lent traditionally falls in the season of the year known as the ‘the hungry gap’ where, historically, food and resources were difficult to come by. It is connected to cosmic cycles and ancient astronomical observations which connect us to the universe, as Easter always occurs on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon (the first full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox). The English word ‘Lent’ comes from the Old English word lencten, meaning ‘spring season.’ Spring is a time of new energy, shift, renewal and transformation.
HOW DO WE TAKE PART?
There are four pillars of LESS for Lent, which have been designed to take into account the lockdown context: For the period from Ash Wednesday, 17th February to the 3rd of April just before Easter:
- Abstain from non-essential purchases
- Fast from non-essential use of digital devices
- Read, learn, share, discuss and build alternatives together
- Take sanctuary: commit to practices that ground, connect and root
Your interpretation of this will be personal and individual, but we will be sharing weekly readings and resources to guide and inform your practice.
COMMUNITY AND SHARING
During LESS for Lent, participants will be given access to an online forum to share, discuss and support each other. This is also where the weekly readings will be shared. Additionally, there are seven online sessions which participants are encouraged to take part in (schedule subject to change:)
Fri 19th Feb 1800-2000 Introduction to LESS for Lent, overview and Q and A
Wed 24th Feb 1800-2000 Community Gathering (getting to know each other and forming interest groups)
Wed 3rd Mar 1800-2000 How to be a Local: Belonging, Meaning, and Knowing Life and Nature at Home
Wed 10th Mar 1800-2000 Sharing with special guest Alastair McIntosh
Wed 17th Mar 1800-2000 Technology, Distraction and Stimulation: Switching Off
Wed 24th Mar 1800-2000 Movement and Embodiment Practice session
Wed 31st Mar 1800-2000 Concluding rites and optional Easter planning
