Natural Time

5.18.25 - Day 3/13 of the Red Skywalker Wavespell - Spectral Moon 17 This is a special edition to address the 'why is life hard?' question that can emerge at obvious moments in the stacked layers of Natural Time. I spoke last podcast about the Red Skywalker wavespell and how I believe it ushers in a long string of wavespells that challenge the human egoic wants, humbling us. This episode reminds you that it's not only the part of the Tzolkin we've entered that can stress our ease. It's also the Blue Rhythmic Storm year, and the Spectral Moon within it. The year is cacophonous and demanding of internal and external transformation. The moon undoes stability and even the outward-facing achievement we may have felt pride about when we hit our Planetary peak. And there is the overlay of the year 2025 having the Mayan astrological orientation of sacrifice. I guess this episode is for those who need reminders that you are not making up any pain or struggle that is arising. It's universal, and it's natural. Hang in there.

5.17.25 - Day 2/13 of the Red Skywalker Wavespell - Spectral Moon 16 Red Skywalker is so distinctively like being high that I encourage you to move through these 13 days without adding any actual plant spirit medicine to its baseline. Immediately I am more spaced out, out of body, weightless and detached from a bunch of reality. That is a good place to swing into from time to time, and for the 13 day arc of Red Skywalker we can affirm our cosmic consciousness and take a break from hardcore planetary intensity. You probably are feeling called to get high separate from this natural state - that is, to escape. All the ways to escape, your own personal trove of shortcuts to disembodied 'bliss,' are beckoning. Again, try to imagine not piling on inebriants to this expansive and wondrous moment, or slow it down and simplify your escape plan so you can actually pay attention to its nuance, and not just obliterate.

5.15.25 - Day 13/13 of the Yellow Sun Wavespell - Spectral Moon 14 We are moving into two very intense passages, the third week of the Spectral Moon and the Red Skywalker wavespell. They are intense because they undo stability. Red Skywalker is a time of prescribed disassociation, traditionally through plant spirit medicine. In other words, it's a time to get high. Or feel as though you are. The energy field of Red Skywalker is that out of body, elevated and mystical space that imitates all the biochemicals and pharmaceuticals people use. At the same time, we are plunging with more acceleration and topsy-turviness through the Spectral Moon's breaking wave dissolution process. Things may be falling apart before they also fall into place. 'Letting go' is pretty easy right now - in fact, it's hard to hold on. If you feel aspects of your life slipping out of your control, trust that this is for the highest good, and open your unclasped hands even wider.

5.12.25 - Day 10/13 of the Yellow Sun Wavespell - Spectral Moon 11 The Spectral Moon is moving along at a clip, and we don't have much time in this rapid descent of our annual wavespell. It is 1/10th the time of our long upward climb. So it is chaotic, and quick, and if it feels really difficult, it will be over soon. If you like the cosmic ride of so much intensified change, of the wondrous spiritual principle of letting go, of the relaxation you feel when your personality obliges and accepts what is, then you must enjoy this moment. It's actually probably a fluctuation of liking and disliking what the Spectral tone brings. There are things we love to let go of, and things that hurt to do so. But if you come back to the question of the Spectral moment, How do I release and let go?, you will have a mantra, a touchstone. You can get help with that act, as a prayer, show me how to release and let go; turn me towards releasing and letting go; I'm willing to release and let go - help me.

5.9.25 - Day 7/13 of the Yellow Sun Wavespell - Spectral Moon 8 We are fully in the dissolution of the year's wave, with all the tumult and chaos that it brings. We used to be climbing - or even being carried - decidedly skyward, and for many moons (since 7.26.24). Now we're cascading all that altitude back to earth, or where we began; maybe an oceanic bed of water would help as an image, so you are aware it's going to be a soft landing. What isn't soft - or secure - is the fall. It's end over end, and you lose your grip through gravitational flux or disorientation. So there's a lot that's coming undone, acting crazy, feeling out of control. It's a bit more relaxed than some of the intense and stern scrutiny we've had turbocharged as the world burns. Now it's burning as ever, but are you able to pay attention? Being set free from that could be a gift, as long as it lasts.

Day 2/13 of the Yellow Sun wavespell - Spectral Moon 3 The collab of Yellow Sun and the Spectral Moon - their starting up in tandem - has been a true vibrational shift. We were in the heady, 'doing', practically anti-mystical fusion of Blue Hand and the Planetary Moon, and both prevented a ton of spiritual connection. Now we are in the wonder of being fed pure enlightenment and a connection to the godhead of the sun itself, alongside the invitation or insistence on surrender that the Spectral tone brings. It took a minute to be sure it's real - 'I can feel/pray/rely on the god I understand again' - but now it seems to have traction. I love waking up, experiencing panic about the same set of dilemmas that existed days ago, with the impulse to 'turn it over,' or simply say, 'Please help.' You know it's a time of undoing. With god on/by your side, you can trust where the disintegration, or basic relaxation, takes you.

5.2.25 - Day 13/13 of the Blue Hand Wavespell - Spectral Moon 1 It's the first day of the Spectral Moon, and the eve of the Yellow Sun wavespell. We are about to flip from pretty hardcore human-centric astrological timezones to something way more 'spiritual.' Yes, humans can be spiritual, by filling their cellular bodies with aspirations of light, but we are the very definition of 'planetary' in our sentience. So when we dip into sentience-positive moments - passages that are oriented to earthen reality instead of the infinite, the heavenly, the otherworldly - we can feel so weighted down we forget that light is not just streaming solar rays, but the quality of anti-gravitational boundlessness. Which I think we need right now, STAT. And it's coming: ether and undoing and being rolled by forces greater than ourselves, without control or a clear landing spot back on terra firma. But maybe we will welcome the rush, the release.

4.29.25 - Day 10/13 of the Blue Hand Wavespell - Planetary Moon 26 A Planetary day in a Planetary Moon. We are so far into the Planetary Moon we have some experiential understanding of the tone, but let this doubling of its energy show you further what it means to manifest and feel productive. See what shows up, and notice how it connects to all the phases earlier in the Natural Time year that you were working through. Then get ready to let it all go. This is the peak of our ascent and accomplishment, and it's about to fall apart - into natural disarray such as every environmental cycle: summer into autumn, seeds into sprout then faded bloom, humans who have their own peak ages and begin to decline. This is the point of making our calendar 'Natural' - following time as something that innately, instinctually peaks and dissolves, endlessly oceanic.

4.27.25 - Day 8/13 of the Blue Hand Wavespell - Planetary Moon 24 We're in the Blue Hand wavespell's 'occult day,' and it's a good time to review what the Occult partnership between tribes means, and how they're calculated. The magical numeric code within the Tzolkin is part of what you can geek out on, and it drives this path as being good for both side of our brain and keeping our mental acuity activated. We are also looking into the last few days of the Planetary Moon and the breathtaking awareness that this is it for a vertical climb toward enlightenment and accomplishment in this surrounding Natural Time year.

4.25.25 - Day 6/13 of the Blue Hand Wavespell - Planetary Moon 22 It's the last week of the Planetary Moon, a time when we are for 28 days looking downward at the planet from a peak that we spent the whole year climbing. Most of an uphill haul we cannot help but be fixated on what's above us, but when we arrive at the pinnacle, the view turns to what we accomplished, what we left way behind. I find myself distracted from spiritual matters in the Planetary tone. And by now, that's grueling and imbalanced. It will not be long before we are cast back to earth, or sea level, by the wave's dissolution. One more week of Planetary fixation and single focus.

4.21.25 - Day 2/13 of the Blue Hand Wavespell - Planetary Moon 18 We are in Donald Trump's wavespell. It isn't just his home base, designed to be comfortable. We all can have real clunkers when it comes to returning to our soul center. It is rather a great moment to look at the distillation of the Donald Trump karmic imposition, on yourself, on your country, on the world. He may thrive - or he may reveal more clearly who he is, authentically, behind the mask of a hapless, stunted and sheltered aristocrat. He is pretty in tune - by total accident - with the Mayan cycles, regularly acting out their essence. So it's worth watching closely and seeing what mystical explanations arise for all this swirling, intense karma and reckoning with one titular man.

4.16.25 - Day 10/13 of the White Wizard Wavespell - Planetary Moon 13 A Planetary day in a Planetary Moon - aka a 'Magic Turtle Day' - really brings into focus what this 10th tone feels like. It feels weighty, earthen, dense, a bit intractable, not fluid, not aerated, and definitely related to what happens on this planet with human beings. There was a moment, maybe for me at the start of studying this calendar decades ago, that a Planetary moment might have felt like a day deep in nature. Go for that if you can, meaning get out into the wild, find the non-human-centric way of being alive on earth. But without that intent or luxury, prepare for the Planetary tone to be a reveal on WTF we as humans are doing on this planet, what we're doing to this planet, getting a glimpse of our craziness and our plight.

4.14.25 - Day 8/13 of the White Wizard Wavespell - Planetary Moon 11 The first two wavespells of the Tzolkin are way less cerebral than the Blue Hand one starting in a few days. Enjoy this momentary fuzziness, feeling-centered unfocus. It's a bit like not having it all together, but also stepping into the grandeur of more divine realms. You don't have to snap awake, grab a cold shower, smarten up right now. Just be adrift like a spring vacation and track your tasks as they happen without as much charge of the future unfolding. When we come to Blue Hand, we will have that wake up call, alertness and hyper-attention. It's not even fun, but maybe a necessary method to grounding ourselves from where we are lately cosmic and celestial and timeless.

4.10.25 - Day 4/13 of the White Wizard Wavespell - Planetary Moon 7 We are in the Planetary Moon as from my experience, it's limited. It's a time of noticing our sentience, instead of our eternal soul, and being landed here on earth instead of afloat and dreamy in the cosmos. So it is weighty. It is compressive. It seems to dull some senses, and certainly our minds. I recognize it from a thousand other Planetary passages. It will pass. We are simultaneously a bit adrift from the timelessness of the White Wizard wavespell, ourselves shaman healers for a moment or also receiving that clarifying insight from somewhere divine, pressing into us a breakthrough, a release. It's okay to be semi-unconscious, in a trance. The work is subliminal, and doesn't require consciousness.

4.6.25 - Day 13/13 of the Red Dragon Wavespell - Planetary Moon 3 It's the last day of official Mercury Retrograde and you will have to breathe and be patient with yourself as everything goes totally awry, whether communication or mechanical failure or those issues conjoined. It's not ever going to get completely easy when we have such a hyper-interactive and digitalized world, Retrograde or not, but you can at least use these moments of mayhem to learn strategies for going inward, letting go of perfect outcomes, noticing that there is magic when something astral has such an everyday impact. It's also the end of the Red Dragon wavespell, and onward we go into White Wizard. There is a hokey old phrase for the sleep between wavespells, the dream space: magic flight. You fall asleep in Red Dragon and wake to White Wizard, and in between you might go somewhere amazing.

4.4.25 - Day 11/13 of the Red Dragon Wavespell - Planetary Moon 1 We enter the Planetary Moon, the peak of the annual 13 moon wavespell. Everything that began last July and August is reaching its highest manifestation and achievement in the next four weeks. You can't pick what your achievement is, but you can be present and awake each day of this moon watching it arrive. You will of course get a sense of it as it becomes material, and this process is magical, invigorating, awesome and also fraught. We are simultaneously experiencing the end of an ascent that has been rising for the entire Natural Time year. Gravity is going to keep us from going any further, and so we will notice our accomplishments, but also what is going to prevent us from endlessly achieving more.

3.31.25 - Day 7/13 of the Red Dragon Wavespell - Solar Moon 25 The Red Dragon wavespell is like waking a sleeping beast, or seeing one stir from a primordial swamp. I describe this as a power move, but not an aggressive one. The feminine divine focus is on being present, holding space, taking up space and being solid - but not pushing in or aggravating. I think that more invasive approach belongs to the male archetype. We are in a time of finding our roots, our depth, our weightiness, our strength. It's quiet and can be like a sneaker wave to others, or when the quietest kid at school finally erupts. That selective outburst, or show of strength, can be very impressive. See where you are quiet and still and where you are explosive.

3.28.25 - Day 4/13 of the Red Dragon Wavespell - Solar Moon 22 Mercury Retrograde is impeding communication and technological ease. At the same time, the Solar Moon - a fiery, charged time of intense focus and drive - is wearing our physical bodies down with all the accelerated activity. There may be a convergence of exhaustion and frustration. We can't move as fast as we've been launched the past few weeks because we are being slowed and weighted by the way Mercury Retrograde impedes clarity and ease. It's important to see that as your verve wains, you are simply coming to terms with the end of a cycle. We had fire and ferocity of intent, but it's shifting now from warp speed to lava flow.

3.26.25 - Day 2/13 of the Red Dragon Wavespell - Solar Moon 20 The new Tzolkin seemed to roll in without a lot of sparks, which makes sense after the Yellow Star wavespell which was all sparks, all the time. And the Solar Moon surround with its fiery corona also dims the subtlety and inward darkness of the Red Dragon wavespell's birth channel. Mostly just be in touch with both: speed, urgency, focus, intention in the Solar moment, and abeyance, withdrawal and deep mystical emergence in the Red Dragon one. And Mercury is in the heart of retrograde which adds to being inside and away from what isn't working. As much as it disrupts so many of our decencies in everyday living, Mercury Retrograde, in its epicenter, is perfect for soulful solace and creation.

3.24.25 - Day 13/13 of the Yellow Star Wavespell - Solar Moon 18 It's the last day of the Tzolkin! A portal day. A 13:20 day (tone 13, tribe 20). How wonderful that you know what the Tzolkin is and are in this esoteric laboratory of shamanic and indigenous symbols. Enjoy that you completed another Tzolkin journey, where time is tracked as a spiritual journey, not a count of anything more than wavespell upon wavespell and tribe upon tribe. Falling into rhythm and facing our karma. Tomorrow we begin again - privately, in our specialized sect, spread thinly across the world and often away from each other. But we share this knowledge and intent.