Redefining and Reinhabiting Time, with Ixchel Lunar
As we continue to explore decline this Autumn, we bring our curiosity and openness to the concept of Time.
This conversation with Ixchel Lunar is layered, rooted, and full of insights about how to redefine Time, our connection to it, and how to flow through our days with greater ease and meaning, even as capitalism surrounds us.
About Ixchel: Ixchel Lunar is a multifaceted writer, publisher, and High-Flow coach with over two decades of experience supporting revolutionary leaders, writers, and creatives in realizing their visions. Drawing from their queer, mixed-Indigenous heritage and experiences as a disabled, nonbinary, vision-impaired, neuro-emergent medicine carrier, they blend ancestral wisdom with modern neuroscience to help creators redefine their relationships with time, creativity, and their connection to the Earth. As a former vice-mayor and seasoned activist, Ixchel champions decolonial practices in leadership and advocates for Indigenous land stewardship.
You can connect with Ixchel in the following ways:
Web: https://decolonizingtime.com/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@decolonizing_time
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/decolonizing_time/
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Megan: Welcome to A Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and the norms of modern work and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, writer, amateur ecologist, and vocational guide.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm your host today. Hi friend and welcome. I'm so glad that you're here today. Thank you for spending time with me in this way. We are here in the Northern Hemisphere approaching the end of the autumn season. We're starting to step into that transition time between autumn and winter when some days feel more like winter and others still feel like autumn.
And I encourage you to just Pay attention to how that shift feels in yourself, in your body, and also how it might be manifesting in the landscape around you. We are still in this time of being invited to let go of whatever needs to be let go of, whatever is asking to be let go of in our lives. And a lot of us could use some help letting go of old unhelpful Stories and definitions about time and capitalism and capitalist culture really does a number as it does on most things on our conceptions of time.
On one hand, it's like there's not enough time in the day to work a job, care, give, clean your house, sleep, take care of yourself. All of the things that need to be done are hard to do. Inside of a 24 hour window when we're trying to survive in capitalism, on the other hand, in capitalist culture, there's this idea that it's okay to just waste your life, waste your time in drudgery, and that that's normal, you know, that it's normal to have a job that you despise, or that just feels, you know, like boredom, or doesn't, that even feels toxic, or That in that way, there's plenty of time.
And what are you doing if you want to live your life with a sense of not urgency, but like appreciation for the fact that. We really do have a limited amount of time on this planet in this body. So it's really confusing. It's like, we don't have enough time to do what we need. And also, there's plenty of time to grow in the ways that we need.
And the seasons will come around again. And also, our time on this planet could be quite short. We don't know when it's going to end. And also, it's just on and on. There's a lot of conflicting ideas about time. And today's guest Ixchel Lunar is someone who has thought deeply about these things. And I really respect Ixchel's perspective on time.
And I have followed Ixchel's work for a couple of years now. And when we were introduced through a friend this fall, shout out to Lisa. Um, I knew I had to see if Ixchel would be willing to come on the show and I'm really delighted that they said yes. So let me introduce you to Ixchel properly. Ixchel Lunar is a multifaceted writer, publisher, and high flow coach with over two decades of experience supporting revolutionary leaders, writers, and creatives in realizing their visions.
Drawing from their queer, mixed indigenous heritage and experiences as a disabled, non binary, vision impaired, neuro emergent medicine carrier, they blend ancestral wisdom with modern neuroscience to help creators redefine their relationships with time, creativity, and their connection to the earth.
Ixchel champions decolonial practices in leadership and advocates for indigenous land stewardship. So in this conversation, Ixchel and I talk about how time is hyper local, some of the indigenous conceptions of time in Ixchel's own lineage, and why being in a state of flow is natural and healthy, and also something that we might need to learn how to do again, because it is so foreign to many of us who are living in linear capitalist time.
So I really loved this conversation. I think you're going to love it. It's full of imagery from Ixchel's home in Chiapas, Mexico and fresh ideas. And I just think you're going to feel really good listening to it. A couple of announcements before we dive in. The first is that my winter journal is out. It's called Living the Seasons: a journal for surviving capitalism and bringing the medicine of winter into your life. And I published one in the autumn and it's been a joy to hear how that journal has helped you and been a sweet companion to you through the autumn season. And we're going to roll into the winter's wisdom with the next journal.
So it includes weekly reflections, my own reflections on that point in the season and what you might be invited to consider. It includes questions for you to actively reflect on, midweek prompts to help you kind of stay in winter's medicine that week. learning from the land exercises to help you connect to the land in a more intentional way.
And really the journal is set up to help you make your own medicine from the season based on where you live and the ecosystem that you're in and the unique things that you're bringing to the winter season and how it's landing for you. So I offer some of my own reflections and guidance, but a lot of it is a chance for you to see things differently and really sync up with the winter season because I do believe that every season offers its own Help and nourishment and change for us that's unique to us And one of the ways that you can get a journal, you of course can buy a single copy or a copy for you and a friend online at awildnewwork. com slash shop.
But another way to get a journal if you're someone who knows that you want one for every season, if you also want to support the show, if you also want to come to the seasonal classes that I offer virtually or in person here in the Portland area. If you're just someone who wants to kind of come all the way in to a wild new work on every level and help make this work exist in the world, then there's a new Membership role called the sustainer membership, and this is on buymeacoffee. com, which a lot of you have so generously contributed to already. And it's 45 a month, and you can also pay annually. And this is a way to, again, just kind of get everything I'm offering and working on right now in one Place with one payment, one sort of channel. So I want to invite you to do that. If you know that you want to support the show and get the journal and come to classes and, and also just make this work accessible to everyone, whether they can pay to support it or not.
So you can learn more about that at buymeacoffee. com slash Megan Leatherman. I'm also about to start our free darkness practice. This is an annual program that I run every November, December, and it's really sweet. It's simple. It's four weeks, once a week of turning your electric lighting off when it gets dark or as soon as you can and living a few hours once a week by candlelight.
And this is one of my favorite practices of the year. My family loves it. A lot of the people who have moved through it with me over the years have loved it and are coming back for another year. And again, it's very, very simple, but profound in its effects, and I encourage you, if your heart leaps at all, at the idea of spending more time in intentional darkness right now, as the Earth is cloaked in darkness here in the Northern Hemisphere.
I encourage you to check it out and join us, and it's just on the homepage at awildnewwork. com. We start on Sunday, November 24th, and if you're listening to this after that, you can still join and just get the remaining emails, and um, yeah, I would love to have you. It's a really sweet time. Finally, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone supporting the show, whether you pitched in.
Once or you're a monthly subscriber, I can't tell you how much it means and I appreciate how many of you heard what I had to say at the end of the last episode about this shift and inviting more income in through your generosity. And I just want to, yeah, say a big thank you to those of you who have already pitched in just since that call, especially recently: audrey. C. A., Jessica, Megan, and Monique, thank you so much. All right, well with that I'm going to share our opening invocation and then we'll dive into this conversation with Ixchel. So wherever you are, just noticing yourself in time and space today, what's it like for you and your body? And what does the autumn look like around you?
What does decline look like? around you. May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors, known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Multnomah, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook, and Clackamas tribes, among many others who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on.
All right, well Ixchel, thank you so much for being here today.
Ixchel: Thank you. Yeah, it's such a pleasure. Your podcast has been such a joy to listen to.
Megan: Thank you. Um, in one of your recent newsletters this fall, you wrote, I'll quote you, it says, quote, " Time isn't something to conquer. It's an ally waiting for you to reclaim it. This shift is beyond time management. It's about reclaiming sovereignty in a world that would otherwise consume you." End quote. And I would love to just start by hearing you speak a little bit about how time is actually an ally, not something to conquer or colonize.
Um, could you tell us a little bit about that and your perspective?
Ixchel: Yeah, I always like to sort of preface it with looking at what is colonized time and really getting a sense of that. So people can sort of start to see the contrast that I'm bringing, because it's a little different than what people are used to just beyond the sort of spiral or cyclical time.
And, um, I really like to highlight the work of other folks that have been. Exploring these edges around colonial time, and they call it different things like stolen time. Britney Dr. Britney Cooper has talked about that in a video of hers. You know, it's it's time has been divided and perfected. Um, so it's very much like the, you know, 24 7 3 65 kind of linear time that we're really accustomed to.
And then in terms of just how we are constantly bumping up against time in the colonial system of, you know, sort of late stage capitalism, it's the way that time's been commodified and, and time really equals money and so much of our lives and, and why we feel so scarce about time is because of that commodification and the way that, you know, You know, work time and leisure time were created to sort of, um, exist within within the capitalistic structure.
And then, um, Tyson Yonka porta talks about outsourced time and what I think is really important with this is the real embodied experience of the earth. As having a finite amount of time based on the matter that it has, and, you know, and its connection to the sun in terms of when the sun eventually is going to envelop the earth and it will morph and change into lots of other types of matter.
And, you know, What we're doing now by, um, treating the planet as a resource is a way of outsourcing time. We're, we're, we're borrowing time from the future of the planet by, Mining for all of these rare earth minerals and, um, the amount of plastics that have, you know, covered the planet and all of those things.
So it's really this borrowing of time that's very much connected to entropy that literally is reducing the lifespan of the planet itself through our outsourcing of time. And then Estelle Ellison talks about time as being foreclosed. And that is really a lot of what, um, the experience that we face on a day to day basis around late stage capitalism and how so much of What makes it difficult are these massive systems that are just reducing the amount of time that we have available to do all the things that need to be done to be a human and to live and to breathe, to take care of ourselves and our family when, you know, the rents keep going up and we never get that cola, that cost of living increase and, you know, all of those things that, like, Really, you know, have that experience for us.
And so I really like to put it into that context. And then we can really start to think of ways that we can shift our relationship with time. And the most basic way that I like to bring forward for people. Is through an indigenous lens through my particular lineage of the Mayan calendar, really sees time as an entity.
If you've ever seen the calendar, you will notice that there are symbols all around the outside. And in the center, there is. person carrying on his back some, some things. I think the, the, the energies of, um, time itself and that tradition of the, the Zolkien or the Tolki calendar is really, it's an observation of the day keepers.
Who over millennia did both of the energetic work to notice what life felt like around them and also to track those cycles within the astronomy of the sky and to merge those two things together into a description of the characteristics of what time is. And so that calendar is really about describing time itself and how time feels to people in the land where I'm living now in Chiapas and in Guatemala and, um, you know, ancient times, it was a much more vast area where, uh, there were day keepers that, that had this practice.
And so when we think about that, time is a really hyper local. When you sit and you experience what's happening around you in a very connected way, and you're observing the world and the cycles. Time is a very hyperlocal experience because time shifts and, and our experience of time shifts depending upon where you are.
And I think that is very true for anyone who has spent time in California on the coast versus in New York city. Right. The times are very different experiences between those two places and everywhere in between on the planet. Many indigenous cultures will talk about time being a very hyper local experience because of their connection to those observations and the way that they interact with the land and are in relationship with the land, and that shifts depending upon.
Where you are on the planet, because there's different things happening, you know, there's different cycles, there's different, you know, weather patterns and food cycles and all of those things that sort of make up our experience at time. And so I really like to have people start to settle into that idea that.
Instead of seeing time as this thing that we have to manage or conquer, you know, in that colonial mindset that we get in relationship with the world around us, we get in relationship with the land that we're standing on and really connect with it in a way that brings us a sense of characteristics and experience of how time is happening where we are and what that means for us on a day to day basis.
And so in that way, It's a process of befriending and really having that relationship.
Megan: Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you. I really feel the truth of that. I have never thought of time being hyperlocal, but you're right. It makes so much sense. I would love to hear a little bit more about what this looks like for you in your own life, kind of settling into time in your place and Chiapas and what.
How you manage, because I know you have a very vibrant business and you write and you're out in the world, you know, and how those fit together, you know, how you are relating to time exactly where you are, and also creating a lot. Can you tell us a little bit about how that weaves together?
Ixchel: Yeah, I'm very moved by the places that I've lived.
I have always had very deep connections to where I live and have always seen those places as teachers and that they're teaching me things about them. And so that, you know, that sense of observation and I'm a 401 in the human design. So that, you know, investigator researcher line of the line one is like, Always curious about what's going on in the world around me, and so I spent a lot of time outdoors when I was young, you know, just from the very macro level of, like, bugs and, you know, things that were happening, like, when I lived downtown with my mom to, like.
My dad had seven acres and just like going out and exploring along the river and, you know, learning to like, be aware of what is it called poison oak, and which I never got, but my siblings did, which is so funny. I think it. I don't know. They say that some indigenous people are like, not susceptible to it.
So I don't know if that was the case, but like, man, my sister always, my half sister always had like, really bad case notes, which I felt really bad, but I was like, very, Aware of like, that's red. I'm not going here. It looks dangerous, you know, and snakes like rattlesnakes living on the rocks and, you know, warming themselves and just being aware of all those kinds of like things to watch out for.
And, um, and then also seeing where there were, you know, Places where people had been there before, um, likely indigenous people who had lived on the land or, or at least had been on the land and, um, rocks and carvings and things that were there. And so just having that sense of curiosity about the world around me helped to really start to make those connections and seeing what, what needed to be learned and observed.
And then as I moved out of California and I lived in Nicaragua for almost six years, and I lived here in Mexico in the highlands for a little over two years now. I really miss Nicaragua. Nicaragua was so fascinating. I lived in the highland jungle there and really a lot of what the land wanted to teach me there was about sloth medicine.
We had sloths that would come through the property and um, there was a particular allspice tree that they really loved the leaves and they would come through um, to have those leaves or to take naps In the very high canopy of the trees, and it was quite incredible. And Then when I moved to Oaxaca, it was such a dry climate.
It was very, very different. It was very hot. It was hard to sort of adapt. And I really tried my best to understand that environment, but it wasn't quite where I was supposed to be. And so we've been here in, uh, Chiapas now for the past year. And, It's really been about understanding the weather cycles as they come through here.
There's, I think a lot of impact that happens similar to the way it happened in Nicaragua because of the, the hurricane season and the tropical storms and things like that, that, that moved through and, and, um, impact life, just general life in general, rainy season is this very extended time. And then the.
The land itself shifts and changes. And so like getting to know the birds and which birds are coming through a couple of weeks ago, maybe a week or so ago, we had parrots, which we used to have. Every day in Nicaragua, they would come through and, um, they would do this amazing flyover and like gather each other up and do their squawking.
And sometimes they would land in our trees and it was such an incredible site and they did that, um, here on this land. And it just felt so wonderful to like. See them come back here and we had seen them a little bit last year, but not here on this land. So that was really exciting. And then this week we're dealing with this just proliferation of the Chiapas wasp, which is a very giant wasp.
It's they literally, to me, they look like flying fairies. outside. Um, they're very large. They're like probably two inches, two and a half inches in size. And they have these long legs and these big wings. And, and then when they sit on the windows, the backs, there's like markings that they have like a face on them.
And yeah, they're really interesting. And they've gotten inside unfortunately, and my dog is very interested in them. And so we've been communicating with the neighbors, like. What is the ecology of these wasps and what's happening and why are they all hundreds of them trying to come inside, right? And my partner's allergic to bees.
So there's a significant concern. And so I learned this afternoon that, um, they migrate. And so this is part of their migration period right now. And they may, um, build some nests, but we're not sure how that occurs yet. Because I know that in, in. Oaxaca, they were smaller and they made like a paper wasp nest and yeah, so anyway, so just sort of watching those cycles and really getting a sense of the weather.
And I always like to encourage people to sort of have a daily sit spot where they can do something similar. And, you know, even if you're in a high rise, like just watching the, the sky itself change throughout the year, you know, just the light itself shifts. It's right. The way that it comes into your apartment, the way that the clouds might move through.
If you are able to open a window, like the different kinds of sounds that the earth, um, at the wind, um, makes when it, you know, when it's moving through and those kinds of things. And so those things, I think, inspire me in a lot of ways and, and really helped me to feel. Connected and embodied, which for me, anytime that happens, it's like an immediate drop in the flow, uh, like a flow state, uh, which is, you know, this very creative place to be.
And it's a, it's a physical sort of neurochemical interaction that goes on for anyone that's not familiar, that, you know, there are actual flow states that people go into, there's a process for them. And those are some of the things that I teach about that. Being able to just sort of drop into them and create those conditions for for being able to drop into them.
I think is one of the ways that we really start to embody that relationship with time. I really see it as that experience of the cosmos itself when we are in flow. I don't think we would be alive today if we weren't able to drop into a flow state. It has really propelled us in our ability to focus, to find food, to be creative, to, you know, do all of these amazing things that we can do with our hands, um, you know, prior to the industrial revolution mechanized.
But, you know, I think it's a really, it's a birthright to be able to, to be in those states. So I'm always looking for ways to find my way in.
Megan: Yeah, I was just going to ask the way you're describing it. It certainly sounds like being in those flow states is our more natural state. And I feel like when you're describing being so in relationship to the lens that you've lived on, it's to me, it feels like you're, it's like a counterbalance to this linear mechanical time that's like in our computers and kind of dictates our lives.
But it sounds like you're so curious about and connected with it. natural cycles that it's like able to ground you more inside of that or balance that out. Whereas I feel like so many of us are stuck. We're not getting that sort of flow state natural experience. So we're stuck in this grind of linear time, like our nervous systems are on it.
But what you're describing sounds like you're, it feels very embodied. Like you're literally out there with your senses noticing. It's not just that you're using a, you know, lunar cyclical calendar, you're like putting your body in the land's time. Is that accurate?
Ixchel: Yeah. And so I, I have been exploring what that means because it does seem different in terms of an approach.
For a while, I was working with the idea of like relational and, um, decolonial astrology, because astrology is one lens of many in human design as another, but these cycles and this relationship to the planet itself is this other way of being in relationship with it. Time. And so now I'm shifting that language more to a cosmology than just like one of these systems, because it's really sort of an all encompassing way of bringing in a number of these different languages and ways of observing ourselves and ourselves in relationship to the land and the people around us as a way of starting to sort of regain that agency.
Right. We, we, We get so disempowered by late stage capitalism in so many different ways, and we get so stuck in the process of making money, right? Time equals money sort of way of thinking that, um, I really, um, trying to help people to find ways to shake that off in so many different ways, because one of the things that when I was learning about flow from, um, you know, one of the most, I think, prolific writers on flow is Stephen Kotler.
And his mentor and mine as well, but only through books was, um, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who sort of named flow as flow and trying to figure out what this was that everyone was experiencing. And then of course, you know, everybody's tried to monetize that and to make it about productivity. And the problem that I have seen with that is that it reduces, it actually flattens our ability to get into flow because our bodies, they lose trust in us.
Because we have learned to sort of shut down our senses of what our body needs in order to be in flow for productivity to get all the things done that we need to get done to make the dough, right? Like it just, it really has a huge impact on our relationship to our body itself. And so A lot of the work that I have to do with people is to really help them to regain trust.
Our bodies trust enough to listen, to pay attention to what our needs are, to really get a sense of what those, um, those physical cycles are that we have, and to honor those and to be aware of them. And, and that really helps to rebuild that. Um, that body trust that so much reverie as I've been starting to call it, but, um, I think really sort of blows the roof off the, that flow for productivity and, and really gets us reconnected to our passions and the things that like just drop us right in the flow.
Megan: Hmm. Yeah. Hearing you say more about that makes me want to go back to what you initially said about the Mayan calendar and the fact that time was maybe seen as an entity and, you know, in this culture, I feel time as so like oppressive and I'm wondering, like, what do you think If you could say a little bit more about, you know, if time was an entity to the Mayan peoples or the day keepers, was that entity, you know, scary or oppressive, or what was that?
What was the perspective or is the perspective on what that relationship could be like? Could you say more about that?
Ixchel: Yeah. So in the, in the Cholqui, there are 20 Nahuales, which are basically those characteristics of what time is like. So. Each day of those 20 days has a particular nuance in what is alive during that day.
How is time showing up and what are the energies of that particular day? It's combined with another, um, that of, of, Tones or energies that go in a continuum from 1 to 13 in an increasing sort of way. So the energy starts off with initiation and it increases to 13. And there's a lot of, um, meaning behind the numbers themselves that I am not going to get into.
But when when you combine those two, you create a cycle of 260 days. So 20 times 13, 260 days. And so that is a cyclical process that where time they saw repeats and it goes through these different energies. And there's, um, there's like a 13 day cycle, which is kind of like a week. They call it a Tresena.
And that's where that first Nahuala of the day one. Has this like layered energy over the 13 days of the rest of them. Now Wallace. And so there's like this sort of like everybody's on this page because it's like right now we're in Kamei. Um, we're in, uh, we're in the 11th day of Kamei. Today is, is now Ajmak, uh, which is related to the bee.
So I don't know if that has to do with the, they might know this is when migration of the bees happens. I don't know. They. These cycles really connect to a lot of the things that happen on the land. I've seen those ahas happen over and over again, so I wouldn't be surprised that today's Ajmak, we have hundreds of bees, or wasps, flying around.
Khame is the Trissana, the ancestors. And we're in Dia de los Muertos this weekend has been Dia de los Muertos. Ancestors also show up as bees and wasps. And so there's a lot of them right now. And, and so We're in like this peak of that energy and and then it'll restart in a couple of days and it'll go into the next Trisana and you know, and it will continue on.
And so there's these like flavors or characteristics about what's happening that. really help people to sort of relate to one another, you know, and they are like talking about what the energy of the day is. And then of course we are born into this calendar and we have these energies and I have seen a fascinating amount, having, you Studied a lot of different systems.
I've seen a fascinating amount of corollary between various different systems and having, so it creates a tree of life, um, which is a huge symbol for the Mayans. The tree of life is the, what we call the Milky Way. That's the, that's the tree of life. And so there's, Three phases that the human goes through in in their life, their youth, their adulthood and their eldership, and each phase has its no while a and that.
Like represents what the quality of that time is for the human in that period of time. So we have like our own calendar, our own tree of life system that we're working with and the energies that we get for this life. And then we also have, um, you know, the day to day calendar and what the energies are doing there.
And so Being able to really get a sense of that calendar over the last eight years now has been quite mind blowing to me given the direct correlation of things that happen. Um, it, you know, it connects also to lunar and solar cycles. So things that are happening. With the equinoxes, for instance, as well.
And so it's been quite a fascinating thing to sort of make those connections and start to learn that calendar. So that's another way and you know, the Mayans are still quite alive. There are many day keepers still doing this work of tracking and observing and noticing the day and sharing that information with people.
And so, um, Um, I always encourage people to, you know, you can find a good ash key on, um, Instagram and start to follow what today's, uh, energy is and, you know, start to notice that within your own environment. If that's something that is interesting to you.
Megan: Thank you for describing that more. Yeah. I can see how being in the actual landscape where a calendar like that was so thoughtfully created and is still maintained is so different than like, I don't know exactly where the Gregorian calendar came from, but it does not certainly doesn't feel land based or embodied. It's just this thing that exists. It has no, uh, physicality to me and even astrology too. I know like different days are supposed to correspond to different planets and that's just never really felt.
I've never felt it, I guess. Um, so it's really exciting to hear that there's You know, actually, this actual living system that's so in the land and that you get, you're, you're seeing it. That's so beautiful. So thank you for sharing about that. What could you say about this? If we could go back into like flow states of sort of a natural.
way of being in the world in a natural way that we can be in creativity, you know, with the earth. Um, what would you say is possible or has been possible in your own life when you have made more space to be in flow states more often? Could you tell us a little bit about it? You know, I guess I have this fear or bias that if I did that all the time, I would never be able to, like, pay my bills or show up for my kids or, you know, there's this fear of, like, floating away almost, but I don't think that's what you're going to say, but can you tell us what your experience has been like with, um, Making more time for that.
Ixchel: Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that some people think they're, they may be in a flow state all the time and that's just not the case, um, because it actually is quite resource dependent on neurochemistry in order to be in flow. And so what happens is people might feel like they're in flow a lot. They're probably not in flow all the time, but they may have sort of maybe a, um, Undirected experience of flow and or, um, I do notice being ADHD myself and other neurodivergence have talked about sort of time blindness.
There may be a confusion there as well, because one of the characteristics of being in flow is an experience where time either speeds up or it slows down and we sort of lose track of time itself, which is an interesting thing to sort of, you know, Once you notice it, you're out like it just pops you right.
So you try not to notice when you're actually in a flow state that that's occurring. But I do think there can be a sense of confusion for some people that maybe because of their their particular way of relating with time and having I don't like the term time blindness. I think there's just a different way that people are experiencing time.
That makes it maybe feel flowy, but I know that neuro chemically it's very taxing to be in a flow state. And so I always caution people that, like, if you find yourself dropping into flow very easily, and then you like. Clean your house for four hours. You're probably going to run out of dopamine and be very tired for the next several days, and you may not be creative for quite a while because it uses a significant amount of neurochemistry and especially dopamine and not for epinephrine that, um, if we don't have those a lot in reserves and we're already sort of burnt out in late stage capitalism.
Then it's going to be hard to find our way back in the flow, um, over and over again. And so I always like to tell people that if you find yourself in flow, you know, try to cap it at like 90 minutes to two hours so that you don't deplete yourself. And if you're not able to get into flow, if you feel like you've been there before, you're not quite sure how you did it or, you know, why it happened, start to notice.
What were you doing when you found yourself in flow? And that will give you a clue into sort of maybe some of the entry points for you. But then also we need to be rested. We really need to have that reserve before we go into flow. And what's interesting is that a lot of the Flow coaches and Kotler in particular, who teaches about this, you know, they talk about, you just go into the struggle phase of flow and then you have to relax into the process and then you're in flow for a while.
And then you do some kind of recovery when you're done. But the problem is we have such a lack of body trust. Like our, our body doesn't trust being in flow because it's. So much used for usually making capital for someone else in a lot of the circumstances, right? If we're doing it for ourselves, I think there's less friction there because hopefully you're doing it for something that you love, but maybe you feel pressure to make money and that could cause some friction there as well.
But being able to do the rest first. And I always talk about it in terms of relational rest, which is very different than when folks are teaching about recovery. It's very much like self self care. That's like not related to other people. You know, in that kind of way, it's very sort of colonial in that respect.
And I really like to encourage people, because at When you finish a flow cycle, when you're done, you know, and you're like, oh, that was amazing. And I felt so good. Maybe I was coloring or painting or writing music or, you know, working on an offer for my business or editing a podcast, whatever it is like, you know, it felt really nice.
The next thing that needs to happen is you need to be in relationship. And that's because at the end of the flow cycle, we have all this serotonin and oxytocin available. And if we actually get into a relationship, whether it's people, pets, plants, place, the land itself, we're going to actually embody that neurochemistry and have a deeper experience coming out of that flow state.
And that brings back that body trust, that similar reverie that we're all sort of craving. And so I really like to encourage that for people that to do something relational is really, really key. You know, just noticing, what are the things that you found yourself in flow? What are your passions? Those things that you've done since you were a little kid that you just find so much joy and so much curiosity and love of doing.
Those are the things that will help you to be able to find flow and maintain that relationship with your body in a way that it starts to feel good to be in flow again.
Megan: This is really helpful because I You know, when I have like a fully open work day and I get to do something that just, I want to do, you know, I can totally get into flow.
And I have wondered like, why I'm so tired at the end of those days. I'm like, I did what I wanted. I had time. I wasn't rushed. Why am I still tired? And this is really helpful because I had no idea. that flow uses a lot. I kind of just thought, you know, the word flow. I just thought you sort of just flow along.
So thank you. That is really clarifying.
Ixchel: Yeah. And, and sometimes what happens is we do things like that are not relational, that are very, that are, we think of it as resting, but really there's like many different kinds of rest. I don't know if, um, if you're familiar with Dr Sander Dalton, but she talks about various, there's like seven kinds of rest that she's identified.
And there's sensory rest, like, you know, we've taken all of this information and all through our devices and everything and like setting that aside. Or there's like a construction right outside my window quite a bit. I need to be able to like really absorb quiet. For a little while each day right now because of the amount of construction and activity that's going on.
There's physical rest, of course But but really getting a sense of like what are your go to ways of chilling like feeling like you're you're resting or you're recovering And then try to change it up a little bit and do a different one and see if that helps you even further But like, as soon as we get on our devices, those devices are geared to steal our dopamine.
That is, um, the way that they get our attention is through all the bells and whistles, the, you know, the bright colors, the scrolling itself, like all those different things. And that'll further deplete our dopamine. And make us actually more tired than feeling like, wow, that was amazing. And that felt really good.
So being able to sort of take a break, do something relational for an hour. So you might find that if you're doing enough of that, that you can get in a second flow block in a day and still feel. Restored at the end of it, but there's a lot of body recovery that a lot of us need to sort of go through in order to get there.
And so really being gentle with yourself and and noticing and and having some of that discipline of like, I don't have the energy for several days. If I do this all in 1 day. And that might be fine if that's what your cycle needs and you don't, you don't have a lot of space for that sort of uninterrupted time.
Just know that trying not to push it if You know, you find that, yeah, I'm really tired at the end of this, and I know I'm not going to be this creative for another week or two, or, you know, something like that to just give yourself the space and the lack of expectation that you're, you might, you know, need to, to do that again.
And in such an intense way, but that if you sort of pace yourself, you'll be able to have the reserves that you need in order to be able to drop in more and But the thing that I caution always is that. The flow that you're doing, it can't always just be for. Work, even if it's work that you love, we've got to be able to sort of there's all these other creative muscles and senses that we need to engage that if we're doing a different kind of flow, like, you know, if you like, Music or, you know, listening or writing music or painting or knitting, um, coming back to my spinning again, um, you know, those kinds of things, especially if it's something with your hands, if that's something you can physically do.
I think that's the way that we really start to tap into that ancestral wisdom and that flow is birthright that really keeps us connected to our passions and our creativity. That's a caution that I would say.
Megan: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, most of my flow these days is. Within work, because that's kind of my only not my only, but my main creative outlet, but I, I get what you mean, there's real value in doing having other entry points into flow.
But if we could stay with this for a minute, I would love to hear how you balance, you know, wanting to be in a creative. Very rooted place and also living in a world where money is needed and just how you, you know, don't abuse yourself or use flow just to make more money, but how you just, yeah, anything you could say about how you navigate that.
I'm sure it's something that you've thought deeply about.
Ixchel: Yeah. So I've been doing the ancestral healing practitioner training with Daniel Foor for his ancestral medicine and. So I feel less alone in trying to, um, guide myself into doing things that are more just creatively enriching for the enjoyment of it.
You know, just for the sake of, of that, my ancestors in particular, the guides that I've been working with have been, you know, dropping the hints of like, it's time to plant your winter seeds, but I need to find dirt. And so there's been some challenges with some of these things. The spinning was one that an ancestor brought forward that I haven't, I brought my spinning to Nicaragua.
It was one of the things that I loved doing previously. I haven't done it in eight years. I need to like watch a YouTube video or something, like remember, or just try to figure it out on my own and see if I can, you know, start to get the. That flow of the spindle itself. It's a hanging spindle, not like a machine, the easier for travel, but I loved the feeling of textiles.
And I've been knitting more in the past year, which has been great because the other places that I lived, there was like three weeks where it was cold enough where I felt like I could have something heavy on my lap. You know, and in Oaxaca, it was just way too hot. Um, so Those things have really helped me to be able to, you know, just reconnect more with those innate talents and skills that I have that have nothing to do with building an offer or coaching somebody through a crisis or poly crisis.
Like, you know, so I have been really finding that my ancestors and, and. The things that they're communicating to me have been really helpful and not feeling quite so alone and trying to navigate like the need to make money and also like take care of my creative impulses and, and uses. Yeah,
Megan: I love that.
We've talked about this before. I'm also moving through this ancestralization work with old school Nate, who was on the show. And I have had the same experience that my ancestors are very practical. It's not just this like spiritual do this or that. They're like, You know, no, you need to spin again or like plant your garden.
Like it's very here and material. And to me, that's just so reassuring and helpful. You know, they, I think they really, really care about our material, physical. Existence and life, and it's not ethereal or not only ethereal. So I appreciate you bringing that into, is there anything else you want to say about this relationship between time and creativity?
And you mentioned how, like, so much of our agency gets taken away inside of capitalism and, and the way we do time and dominant Western culture. You know, the, the season that we're in where I live is this autumn season when all of the leaves are changing colors and it's this beautiful time that comes as a result of.
Less sunlight or less daytime, you know, and I'm just curious if there's anything you might add about this relationship between time and our like, maybe not just creativity, but our agency and like, how we can feel like we're fully able to be in our lives. That was a really meandering question, but anything you want to respond to?
Ixchel: Yeah, I would say. One of the things that I have noticed in witnessing others sort of finding their way back and being able to help them get reconnected with their body and the world around us is really starting to open up our senses. And so what are the ways that we can do that on a regular basis? So I've created, um, daily practices that sort of help people drop in in different ways to being with their, the land that they're on.
And starting to reconnect with senses as a way of doing that. So whether it is, you know, going out and literally smelling dirt, like, you know, like if we could, you can notice so much in just picking up some hummus and smelling it and really getting a sense of like, What is living within the dirt itself and and getting a sense of that, you know, there's lots of us are oriented visually and to how we see the world.
Right. But there's also, you know, the listening. So one of the things that for me has been really profound is noticing the difference in the way the wind sounds through different trees. And we have a lot of pines on this land, and they're the long pine needles. And the way that the wind moves through the long pine needles is so different than, I was in California recently, and I was in the highlands above LA, and we were in really tall pines, but they were short needles, and they sounded different.
They sounded sharp. Like I don't I don't know what the word is for it. More trouble. I'm not sure, you know, but they sounded different than the needles and the way the wind blows through the needles. Here is much more of a like, um, a low wishing sound. And so just like even noticing that and being able to notice when it happens and just like because we miss it.
So much. We miss what's happening just when the wind moves through. And there's so much communication. I feel that's happening with the wind. Like you can start to notice the wind. Changes when the water is nearby and we're and we're going to get a rain versus when the wind is just blowing and it's sunny.
And so different ways of starting to open up your senses, though, in in the chalky in the mind calendar. I am an emotion which is connected to. What the Mayans believe are the 20 senses that like we have this like very minimal five or six senses that we think exist and the Mayans are like, no, actually there's 20 and they're very different.
Some of those are, we've started to get language for them in the Western culture of like, um, prior, prior, Our perception, right, is like one of, like, our body, like, noticing our body and what's happening with our body in relationship to the world around us and, um, noticing that we notice, right, is another kind of perception and things like that.
So part of, like, I think, One of the reasons that I'm here on this planet is to also help people start to expand their sense of senses and what those senses are because I have a lot of feeling and a lot of sensation that comes through. Um, and so, Just been playing with that of like, how can I help other people to just sort of expand what they think of as hearing and what are they hearing?
And, and, you know, in terms of our sense of smell and what are the kinds of things that we're noticing with our sense of smell? I'm like a super high taster and smeller and, um, Has been a problem in the past, but you know, now it's like, Oh, okay. So I'm smelling more than what other people are smelling, but why can't other people smell this like petrichor?
That's a really good one. Most people know what it is. They never maybe labeled it or named it, but like that smell that, um, happens when the rain hits the earth and it releases organic, uh, volatile, organic compounds, right? Chemicals that, um, it's. Petrichor and it's full of all of these like amazing nutrients that if we breathe that in then we're we're pulling that because you can breathe you can breathe nutrients in through the nose and they will actually get absorbed right so lots of different ways that we can start to explore that and for me I find That, um, it starts to loosen us up and let's go of some of those restrictions that we placed on ourselves and that the world is placed on us that sort of keep us, you know, neat and tidy in our little boxes with our human bodies.
Megan: Thank you. Yeah, I can see how the senses would be an excellent way into some of this that we've talked about. Is there anything else you'd add that we haven't covered today? This has been such a rich conversation, but is there anything that we've missed that you feel is just timely right now?
Ixchel: You know, in terms of like the concept that I'm trying to help people see and experience and shift their relationship with time as an entity, I also want people to have that experience with their bodies that like we inhabit our bodies, but our bodies are like very much a sovereign being and have their own needs and their own pace.
And as we're Sort of shifting that relationship with the world around us to also start to shift their relationship with our bodies and really paying attention to the pace and the cycles that our bodies have really starts to open up that ability to have that that reverie and that trust that's needed to be creative.
And so. Just to start to make those subtle little shifts of like dropping in and connecting and paying attention to what the body needs right now and noticing Um, there's lots of ways that you can do this via human design based on defined centers and your type and profile that start to help you connect with what the body needs.
And it's one of the reasons I think human design is very interesting, even though it has sort of problematic roots and how it was brought together. It's based in the I Ching, which is the oldest living divination system. By maybe a thousand or two years from the Chalky, um, the oldest living divination system and continuous use, right?
Based on the element. So very much a grounded practice of connecting with ourselves and the world around us and being able to get a sense of what the body means, I think can really open up our relationship with ourselves and the world around us and really start to honor those, those cycles and those places that.
Are so important to I think the resilience that's needed during this time and yeah, I would just say what would it be like to think of your body as its own entity and you know, we, we come into it and we leave it and you know, it's, it's made up of. Countless organisms, really. It's a whole ecosystem in and of itself that like really has a good sense of what is needed for it.
So that in and of itself is, I think, another shift that would really support us and being able to reconnect with time and our sense of flow and, and the ways that we like to get into flow.
Megan: Thank you. I feel in myself, this desire to come into more of this. As a way to balance out. more that sense of time being an oppressor versus, you know, spending more time with the land's pace and my body's pace.
I can see how, I guess I'm just noticing how this is not a cognitive exercise. You know, you keep talking about like, Really getting in your body out, you know, on the land, noticing it's not, this isn't just like a five part framework that we think through, um, just appreciating the richness of that.
Ixchel: Yeah, it, it, um, takes patience to sort of be with it.
It's. I always say that, like, when people learn this, they can't ever unsee it. They do still operate within dominant, dominated culture. And, you know, Colonial time and that sort of thing, but there's this dissonance with cognitive dissonance that starts to happen where you start to see time as something other than what we've been conditioned to see it as and and so give yourself that space and that expansiveness to really feel into it.
It's definitely not something we can like rush into and fix. And I always like to tell people that like, we are one generation of many, many, many generations. Like we think probably 14 generations it's, it's taken to get us to, to where we are through colonialism. And it'll take another 14 generations for us to turn away from colonialism and back to the planet.
And so I like to sort of leave people with that sense of long time of like, We're not going to fix everything. It took 14 generations of people to fuck it up, excuse me. Um, and so we are just one of many that can do this work and it will take that amount of time to really shift us away from the mess that we have created for ourselves and so be kind, be gentle, be patient and pick, pick your thing.
That's going to help bring us out of this. And know that the work doesn't end with us. It's, it's, we're in the continuum.
Megan: Thank you. Yeah, I feel that that's so true. Where can people find you if they want to continue hearing you talk about these things and learning from you? Um, and is there anything specific you want to highlight in terms of what you're up to right now?
Ixchel: Yeah, so, um, folks can visit decolonizingtime. com. And right now I've got a couple different sort of entry points for people.
If you're like on the more like creative, writer, that sort of thing, revolutionary, leader, activist, I've got some, you know, Some practices and daily practices that are like really shake things up for you and help you drop into that creativity more. And that's called time weavers. And then I have a new process called time devotion that I caught the time devotion renewal kit.
Cause we are all. So like on the edge of like burnout or in burnout, and so really helping people to her realign with time and their energy and figuring out what that means for them. So there's practices for getting into some, some memory and, um, you know, getting a sense of what our strengths and passions are and really being able to reconnect with those as a way of healing and recovery.
Um, and so that's sort of like a, it's an encapsulated, the time we versus a subscription. So it's sort of an ongoing, you get a monthly guidebook with the teaching and daily practices. And that time devotion is a contained sort of kit that takes you through, um, basically some of the best practices that I have, um, that I've been working with clients over the last five years or so.
So, um, that's brand new and it's beautiful. And. Getting a lot of really wonderful excitement about it. So yeah, so those are both on the website and people can see what aligns and resonates. Check those out.
Megan: I'll put those in the link, those links in the show notes too. So it's easy for people to find.
Thank you so much, Ixchel . This was a really beautiful conversation. I'm so grateful.
Ixchel: Yeah, thank you. I hope that it lands for people, too.
Megan: Okay, my friend, I hope you loved that conversation. I encourage you to connect with Ixchel and follow along for some different perspectives on time and creativity and just how to be in the world right now.
Um, Ixchel is a deep thinker and has a lot of important perspectives that I've really benefited from and I think you will too. Thank you again to those of you supporting the show or supporting my work generally. through pitching in financially, or leaving a review, or sharing the show with others. I really, really appreciate that.
I don't do any paid advertising. The only way this gets out is through your love and support. So, I really appreciate it. I will be back with you in two weeks, and we are going to go deeper into the Autumn Lessons of Decline and Transformation as we start to make this change. transition from autumn to winter and as the winter solstice approaches in late December.
So I'm looking forward to gathering with you in a couple of weeks. Take such good care and I'll see you on the other side.