The Decolonization of Turtle Time

Time Is a Relationship, Not a Ruler

Time is often treated as law, rigid, external, unquestionable.

But time was never meant to govern life. It was meant to move with it.

What we call “time” today is not neutral. It is not natural. It is a constructed system, shaped by empire, industry, and extraction, designed to optimize productivity, coordination, and control rather than human or ecological well-being.

The disorientation many people feel right now, the sense that weeks collapse, seasons blur, and the calendar feels untrustworthy, is not a personal failure. It is a biological and spiritual response to living inside a time system that is fundamentally misaligned with the rhythms of life.

This is not about rejecting time.

It is about decolonizing our relationship to it.

Before Clocks: Nature’s Time

For most of human history, time was tracked through relationship, not abstraction:

the moon’s waxing and waning, the turning of seasons plant cycles and animal migrations, the body’s own rhythms, sleep, hunger, menstruation, rest

Time was cyclical, not linear.

It returned. It renewed. It rested.

Many Indigenous cultures across the world lived by lunar calendars. In North America, this was often symbolized through what is commonly called Turtle Time.

The turtle carries a living calendar on its back:

13 large scutes, representing the 13 lunar cycles 28 smaller markings around the edge, reflecting the average lunar month

This 13-moon, 28-day structure aligns closely with:

the lunar cycle the menstrual cycle tidal rhythms circadian regulation

Time here was not something you “kept up with.”

It was something you participated in.

The First Shift: Time as Administration

The first major rupture occurred with the rise of empire.

In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar. Rome needed standardized time to manage taxation, military campaigns, and governance across vast territories.

Nature-based time was too variable.

Empire required uniformity.

This marked a turning point:

time became centralized authority

replaced observation coordination

replaced relationship

Time began to serve the state.

The Second Shift: Time as Moral Authority

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, the system most of the world still uses today.

While framed as a technical correction, this change also reinforced:

religious authority over daily life

standardized holy days and labor rhythms

moral judgment around punctuality

discipline and obedience

During this same era:

Indigenous calendars were labeled “primitive” or “pagan” colonial expansion accelerated natural timekeeping was actively suppressed

Time was no longer just administrative.

It became moralized.

The Third Shift: Time as Extraction

With the Industrial Revolution, time underwent its most violent transformation.

Mechanical clocks, factories, and wage labor turned time into a commodity:

hours became units of value

lateness became punishable

rest became inefficient

The sun was replaced by the clock.

The body was overridden by the schedule.

This is the version of time we live under now:

linear relentless optimized for output, not life

And the body knows it.

Why This System Feels Distorted

The Gregorian calendar and clock-based scheduling are not inherently “evil.”

But they are incomplete.

They ignore:

biological rhythms

nervous system regulation

seasonal energy recovery cycles

The result is chronic dysregulation:

burnout framed as personal failure

exhaustion normalized

intuition overridden by obligation

mismatch between lived experience and imposed structure.

The body keeps time differently than the clock.

Reclaiming Sovereign Time

Decolonizing time does not mean abandoning modern systems.

It means changing our relationship to them.

Sovereign time begins internally.

It looks like:

honoring energy instead of forcing consistency allowing rest cycles to change week by week creating seasonal rhythms within work and creativity listening to the body’s signals before external demands

Time becomes relational, not punitive.

You still use clocks, but they no longer define your worth.

What a Lunar, Seasonal Life Looks Like Now

Living in alignment with Turtle Time today does not require rejecting society. It requires translation.

Examples:

structuring work in creative waves instead of daily pressure

planning rest around emotional and energetic cycles

noticing how productivity shifts with the moon or seasons releasing guilt when capacity naturally contracts

This is not rigidity.

It is responsiveness.

Nature is not static.

Neither are we.

Why This Is Emerging Now

Globally, we are witnessing:

the collapse of unsustainable systems

burnout across industries

collective questioning of productivity culture

a return to nervous-system awareness

This teaching is emerging now because machine time is no longer viable.

The world is being asked to slow, not as collapse, but as recalibration.

Anchoring This in Daily Life

Reclaiming time begins with one question:

What does my body need today?

Not yesterday.

Not last week.

Today.

As we honor our inner clocks:

life reorganizes

external demands shift

reality responds

Time reflects relationship.

When we stop betraying our rhythms, the world meets us differently.

Closing

Time is a suggestion, not law.

And it was never meant to be colonized.

When we remember how to live in rhythm,

with the moon, the seasons, and the body,

we don’t lose time.

We come home to it.

Author’s Note

In May of 2025, a soft-shelled turtle knocked on our front door, literally. Afterwards a friend mentioned the turtle calendar, and the encounter landed in my body as a message about Indigenous time and natural rhythm coming back online.

What I didn’t have yet was language for the collective teaching. That came later.

This is often how life unfolds for me now: the experience arrives first, fully lived in the present moment. Clarification follows when the body is ready to hold it. Meaning doesn’t rush. It ripens.

Eight months later, this piece arrived.