What if we learnt to slow down together?

In the systems we live within, we’ve grown up learning damaging narratives of overwork, control and human centrality. They are tightly knotted stories of who and what matters, and what it means to be a productive, valuable member of society. These stories ask us to get on with it, to stop wasting time, to disregard our own and each other’s limits. They are narratives of oppression, erasure and distraction. 

Stories like this do everything to us and nothing for us, and nothing for the more-than-human world around us. The fast pace of modernity and its relentless pursuit of ‘more’, keeps us distracted and exhausted. The world around us suffers as we make choices out of convenience, profit and efficiency rather than choices aligned with our own values. It’s increasingly difficult for even highly purpose-driven people and organisations to separate from the idea that productivity and speed = worth and success. 

But these stories are singular and rigid, and like all rigid things, they eventually form cracks. In those cracks, new stories can take root and sprout, when we give them soil and water…  

Building on the work of elders, practitioners, and poets, such as Tricia Hersey, Bayo Akomolafe, adrienne maree brown, Miki Kashtan, Vanessa Andreotti, Sophy Banks, Joanna Macy, Andrea Gibson, Mary Oliver and many others, we believe, instead, that slowing down is a big part of the work to be done in these times. Slowing down (in all its expansiveness) enables us to shift perspective, to draw on all our senses, and see new and different possibilities. It opens up space in our minds, hearts and souls to dream, sense, listen, imagine and grieve.

“Slowing down seems to be a hacking of the machine. It’s like we’re taking on other forms of body, of embodiment, that allows us to penetrate into different kinds of realities. Other worlds, if you will.” – Bayo Akomolafe

Lucy and Maria invite you to ‘grow ivy into the cracks’ with us in this hopeful and rebellious action inquiry. We’ll come together in the practice of slowing down as a form of radical resistance and transformational work. Together, we’ll have space to be fallow, existential and messy, sit with the ease and resistance we feel in doing this, and play with the possibilities and questions that dwell in the cracks. We offer a space for slowing down enough to feel, for dancing between learning, unlearning, reflection and practice, and for opening up enough to imagine alternatives. Our hope is for you to leave with a sense of what’s needed and what’s possible, and to bring fresh ways of thinking, being and doing into the way that you live and work.

The details

This action inquiry is a hybrid experience, with in-person gatherings at the beginning, middle and end, and online sessions in between. Over the course of 10 sessions, across 11 weeks, we’ll explore the expansiveness of slowing down and cyclicality, the potential of slowing down as an enabler of creativity and collective imagination, and be invited to practise together and play with ideas in creative, experimental and thought/feel-provoking ways.

In-person sessions:

• We’ll meet three times in person, first on Saturday 18th January 2025, again on Saturday 22nd February 2025, and to close on Saturday 5th April 2025 (all sessions 10.30-4.30PM, in South, Central or East London, full details TBC)

Online sessions:

• Interspersed with the in-person sessions, we’ll meet seven times online on Wednesday evenings for 2 hours (6-8PM UK time, see below for exact dates)

• These sessions will be on Zoom and will be recorded, and we’ll use other methods of capture to document our journey, such as Google Docs and/or Mural

We’ll aim to finalise all details as we gather participants, and will be asking about needs and preferences along with your expression of interest.

Click the button below to express interest in joining us, and we’ll be in touch!