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This week my partner was traveling for work and visiting our kids. I was home, taking care of three dogs and myself, bumping into my capacity on the daily.
Iāve struggled with chronic fatigue on and off since my kids were little. They turn 33 and 34 in a few weeks. But it was long Covid that introduced me to a whole other world of fatigue.
Itās been three years and nine months into this journey.
Being debilitated, by dysautonomia as well as the residual limitations of my arms from the spinal crush injury in 2021, has taught me so much about honoring capacity, being patient, and radical acceptance.
So when I tell folks to mask, itās out of love and lived experience for something you donāt want to go through. Covid is running rampant right now. Please mask and donāt spread it when you get it.
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After watching the tv series 1923, I decided to revisit Yellowstone. I had tried watching it when it first came out and found it unsettling because of the rugged individualism and conflicts over land with original tribes.
In the series thereās a scene where dinosaur bones are discovered by a mixed-indigenous child. Later the bones are seen by a drone of snooping ātreasure-huntersā, yt men that trespass onto the reservation to take the bones.
So, I was curious to see Sapiens, an anthropology Magazine, run an editorial about Decolonizing Archeology. (Archaeological Tropes That Perpetuate Colonialism)
If you watched the Yellowstone series and the story was worth 5 seasons, let me knowā¦
Saturday I began the Mayan Wisdom Projectās last live Cacao Training. If youāve followed me for any length of time you know I grew up with cacao medicine as part of the community gathering at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, Iāve been very supportive of sourcing cacao from Indigenous collective growers.
I wrote a guide to working with cacao based on what I had learned from Indigenous teachers. And now Iām hoping to be able to visit Guatemala again next year for the in-person training that follows this one.
Mayan Wisdom Projectās co-founder Solveig Barrios was as curious as I was when āMayan Cacao Ceremoniesā started popping up, especially facilitated by yt people. Living in Guatemala, she began asking around to find out what this was, because, like me it wasnāt something she had known growing up. Thus started the Mayan Wisdom Project, which dispels the notion of this western creation.
A friend that grew up in Hawaii recently mentioned something similar around the appropriation of Hawaiian culture with the luau, a yt tourist take on original Indigenous practices.
But the āceremonyā (kotzāij) for Maya people is not centered on cacao, but on a deeper Indigenous practice where cacao is one of many offerings.
What Iāve learned attending several ventanas (20-day teachings) about the Mayan energies and drinking and growing cacao is that, just like other medicinal medicines, growing cacao is part of an ecosystem of relationships.
It was exciting to hear that work is being done to save an heirloom Cacao varietal called nacional. Be mindful of the yt saviorism that pervades this article from the Smithsonian, an institution that reeks with justification for treasure-hunting and saviorism to collect.
A 4-part series with Lisa Jara on Decolonizing Time, the Body and Liberating Flow (Flow here is a double entendre) is being slow dripped weekly beginning this week. You can follow on her website and Spotify.
This Emergence Magazineās talk (Spotify embed below) on liminal space, shifting landscapes and eco grief was balm on this Sunday. No doubt Emmanuel has tasted Gloria AnzuldĆŗaās Nepantla writings. It felt like a sermon. āWhen we are both left with the fragments of a dying world and given glimpses of an emerging one; when there is so much beauty and destruction to be witnessed, how can we find our bearings? In this talk, given at Emergenceās recent Shifting Landscapes retreat held at Sharpham Trust in Devon, England, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee offers a frame for how we might navigate our current moment of unprecedented transition and transformation. Speaking to what can take root when we truly open ourselves to grief, love, and ultimately kinship with the living world, he urges us to step into the liminalāthe space between worldsāto recognize an invitation into new ways of being.ā
In reflecting on the fact that it was held in the UK, and was likely for people of means, I wondered at whether process grief and feeling the feels of eco anxiety are only for the privileged. But, as rest is resistance (h/t Audre Lorde āCaring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.ā) so too is feeling all the feels so we can come together to resist what is happening to the planet.
This TedTalk by Barbara F. Walter is going around this week, āIs the US headed towards another civil war?ā Walter explains how the US was defined as an anocracy in 2021. (Anocracy, or semi-democracy, is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a “regime that mixes democratic with autocratic featuresā.)
Sheās advocating for avoiding civil war. Her argument for business investment in underrepresented communities rather than āburn it down extremismā is still working within the dominator system, using the master tools to dismantle the masterās house (h/t Audre Lorde).
This kind of analysis is still in either/or thinking. Either we appease the oppressed or we get dictatorship. Itās a tactic from the Democratic Party playbook that has been used for years to justify status quo or over-capitulating to Republicans for as long as Iāve been alive. The center always moves right rather than left, with left being seen as āextremismā.
To be honest, this way of governance is leading to a steady fall of imperialist US. We donāt have to burn it down, but if all we do is avoid dictatorship, we will see it continue to crumble. What emerges from that is up to you and the daily work you do dismantle colonialism in you to re-indigenize your community and your relationship with Time.
TikTokās Iāve enjoyed
(This is a curation, best to watch them in order. If these donāt get you on the decolonial side of TikTok, I donāt know what will!)
Why didnāt Africa colonize Europe?
CherƔn: Indigenous communities protecting and stewarding the land in MichoacƔn Mexico, where my ancestors are from.
Re-indigenizing centers Indigenous rather than the colonizer in the term decolonizing. This is something Iāve been feeling as well and in part why I shifted my upcoming course and talk from Decolonizing Time to Befriending Time. I also like Re-indigenizing Time.
Thereās been a lot of opinions shared about Burning Man jumping the shark this year. Honestly the ethical conflicts abound in people running this event. But after what happened in the storms following Hurricane Hilary, I will be very surprised if the Bureau of Land Management or the original people of the land allow it to continue. Though, since this is rich Silicon Valleyās plaything, no doubt people will be paid off. Hereās a perspective from a Rwandan refugeeā¦
Sidenote, growing up in the Grateful Dead scene, when young people that didnāt understand caring for place came into the picture in the mid to late 80s, many cities uninvited the Dead from returning.
So, while it was applied testing for core burners who had such beautiful experiences š, for many who had no ethos or business being there other than for cache, the event organizers and makers of structures that are being burned really need to take a hard look and read the fucking room of where we are in this Time.
Productivity is ableist (a carousel swipe through)
Relationship Anarchy: āYou donāt have to be capable of everything.ā If you;āre unfamiliar with this term, or you know from polyamory, you might want to learn more about it as it relates to deconstructing patriarchal relatinship heirarchies as you re-indigenize and remember relationship structures outside of the nuclear family.
Thank you for reading Dragon š Letters from Ixchel Lunar. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Stay wild, love fiercely. Your presence is golden.
With stardust and celestial love āØšŖš«
xo Ixchel
P.S. Citing is a feminist and decolonial power move (/ht to Kelly Diels for making that an anthem). If you’ve gained insights and shifts from my work, please remember to cite me and share Dragon š Letters with a friend. Not citing is a form of epistemicide.
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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. Itās an acknowledgment, a citation, of the origin of information in my process of understanding. (h/t Kelly Diels)
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Copyright Ā© 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.
