“Ashes to ashes / Funk to funky. . . ”  — David Bowie
“My ecstasy has turned to misery.” — Bunny Hickory Dickory Dock, New Year’s morning
“Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, / vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” — Ecclesiastes, 1.2

Trinkets and trash. Let me tell you something, children. They lied to you, they lie to you now and you lie to yourself. The purpose of Trinkets is to trap you, to weigh you down, to put you in a cage. I have stripped myself of all my possessions five times in my life, and I look forward to doing it again. Another secret from an old man: Life is a cycle of shedding accretions: accrete, shed, accrete, shed, until all that remains is your monkey body. Ashes. Or, more poetically and expansively: “We are stardust / Billion-year-old carbon.” — Joni Mitchell.

Travel light. The things you want to carry with you are portable: Your brain and your body. Keep those in good working order and the world is open to you. You want to carry knowledge, your craft, your passions, your talent, your memories, your love, your relationships, your experiences. Okay, and maybe a warm jacket, a good knapsack and an iPhone. But you get me.

That’s what the excesses of Mardi Gras can teach you. We beg these powerful people high up on these floats, we scream, we fight, we jump, grab, stomp on our neighbours’ fingers. Again: For what? Leave that scene, children, run! Out! Out! Go! You only do that out of fear, fear that is not real, fear that is a consensual hallucination dreamed up by those floaters to keep you in cages. Go!

Maybe that’s what we can explore for the next 40 days of Lent: NO FEAR. It’s more than last-century’s clothing brand / energy drink. It’s the whole point of the season: Coraggio! Courage! Pick up your monkey body and Go!