Dragon 🐉 Letter #98: Silver Palms, Spiral Time, and the Ache of Belonging
Hola! I’m Ixchel Lunar (they/them), an Indigenous time ecologist, ancestral medicine guide, and rhythm witch for creative rebels, decolonial dreamers, and neuroqueer visionaries. This Substack is dedicated to weaving business, body, and belonging into something no empire can replicate. Still punk as fuck. Still cozy in the chaos.
Beautiful Wildlings!
What a time to be alive! While I was wondering if I would still be here after July 26th, my mentor, Joanna Macy, was hospicing. Her daughter Peggy and assistant Anne posted Joanna’s dying process a couple of times a day on Caring Bridge. It was bittersweet and brought many memories of my own midwifing of my abuelita Bea in from January to May 2003. Only a few months ago I finally found all the emails I had sent to a friend sharing my processing of witnessing death become her.
In my reflections on life and decisions, Time doesn’t unfold for me in a straight line. Even timelines loop and spiral, connecting the now with what was and what could have been.
In December 2002, my abuelita lived as if it were her last Christmas season, because it was. She had end-stage Hepatitis C, choosing not to undergo warfarin treatment many years earlier. With my guidance, she had been taking milk thistle and CoQ10 along with blue-green algae to support her liver for many years. That winter, she made a decision to stop.
Mexican Christmas happens on the eve, not the day. And it was always a huge event at my grandparents’ house. Tamales, Mr. Rene’s cake (a master baker from Switzerland), and presents for all the kids and my abuelita because December 24th was her birthday.
That Christmas, she chose to celebrate with alcohol, which wasn’t something she typically did. For me, it was an uneasy celebration as I worried about her liver. And within days, she was very sick. Looking back on the photos, I can see Death near her. But then, I refused to see it.
Over the next six months, her liver was failing. And I stayed to help her through instead of starting my PhD with Joanna as my doctoral chair.
Towards the end, she made me promise to get that PhD. I broke that promise along with a few others, including keeping the extended family together. I just don’t have that kind of gravity that creates orbits around me. She didn’t understand that she was our Sun, Moon, and Stars. After she was gone, we each drifted off in different directions — no longer pulled together by her gravitational field.
The last month or so she was alive, I kept a journal called Bea’s Day, tracking the symptoms, food, and guests. They even signed it, and if she was sleeping, I would share the entries with her later. I made copies for guests at the funeral.
Joanna’s Caring Bridge was today’s version of that, but it included photos, which made it that much more intimate. There were some friends like Gumby and Pokey, a teddy bear, a porcupine, and a sloth (my fave!!!) that were pictured in various places around the room and next to Joanna at times through her letting go.
And while they stopped photographing her face, there were these precious close-ups of her silver hair on the pillow.
All of this internal processing of their deaths and my possible death happened during my last Ancestral Medicine Intensive (my training is complete!) and our move from Chiapas to Veracruz. It was a lot.
Joanna merged into the infinite as we were arriving at the temporary housing in Coatepec, Veracruz. And the garden here with these giant Silver Palms was such a peaceful landing.
In grad school, Joanna put words to my experience of Deep Time. Those connective feelings I had had of it growing up finally had a name and a practice for going into that state of being. I’m so grateful to her family for giving us the gift of witnessing her conscious dying process. She even had a home wake, which is what I want (except after I wish my body eaten by vultures and then my bones burned and spread to the four corners).
The emotions of her hospice and the chaos of the move defined the cliff of my capacity. The warm, humid heat here is delightful and further requires my body to pause and recover. It, too, feels liminal in that we didn’t find anything available to rent in August, so we’ll be in boxes until November, when we will move into a rental in the forest of Briones.
In this liminal stretch — between old homes and new ground, between breath and beyond — I’m feeling called to deepen the ancestral threads I’ve been tending.
Your engagement in this work will support me in raising funds for new housing and is much appreciated!
I’ve created the Ancestral Wayfinding Ritual Kit as a gentle beginning. A way to reweave connection through your senses, your stories, your altar. It’s a self-guided practice, rooted in the teachings I carry and the repair I’m still walking, just $77.
For those ready to go deeper, my books are open for 1:1 Inheritance Ancestral Lineage Healing Sessions — a trauma-aware, culturally grounded process based on Dr. Daniel Foor’s method, for working with your well ancestors to bring resolution and blessing through your lineages starting at $111.
And beginning in August, I’ll be beginning Ancestor Circles — a very popular offering from Ancestral Medicine back in the day, which are no longer offered. These are weekly 90-minute small group Ancestral Lineage Healing sessions for those already working with the Ritual Kit or have taken Ancestral Healing from Daniel, or worked with another Ancestral Lineage Healing Practitioner in the past.
These are spaces for up to 13 people of shared reverence, support, and repair. Sliding scale monthly subscription will run $100-300/mo. ($25 to $75 per session). I’m crowdsourcing the first Day/Time. If you’re a full-body YES!, reply to hold your spot and let me know your best days/times. The time will be added on the website once we’ve decided.
I’ll leave you with Joanna’s well-known quote, “The heart that breaks open can hold the whole universe.”
I’m holding that truth close — and holding space for you, too.
With devotion across Time…
Stay wild, love fiercely. Your presence is golden.
Maltiox! xo Ixchel
P.S. August sessions are open for Stellar Human Design, Astrology, Ancestral Inheritance, and Ancestor Circles.
P.P.S. Maltiox pronounced mall-tee-osh means with gratitude in K’iche Mayan.
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I was raised and bore children on the traditional, unceded, and stolen lands of the Coast and Central Valley Miwok (colonized as Petaluma, CA) and Nisenan (colonized as Sacramento and Fair Oaks, CA), past, present, and future. I also write, work, and live in the highland forest of the traditional, unceded and stolen lands of the Totonac, Nahua, and Mexicah, past, present, and future, in what is known as Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico.
P.P.S. I do not live or consent to the colonial impositions regarding the construct of Time. I also practice honoring rhythms of work, play, and rest so that I can serve you with embodied presence and with loving care. This means I may take several days to respond to your requests and questions. (h/t Eva Glamaris)
P.P.S. A mention is not necessarily an endorsement of someone. It’s an acknowledgment, a citation, of the origin of information in my process of understanding. (h/t Kelly Diels)
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Copyright © 2026, Cheyenne, WY, and Veracruz, Mexico, All rights reserved. Sharing your lineage of knowledge is decolonial. When iterating, please cite me. Not citing is epistemicide.
