Decolonizing Time: How Colonization Changed Our Relationship with Cycles

When we think about colonization, we often picture land loss, language suppression, or resource extraction. But colonization also stole something more subtle and equally powerful: our relationship with time.

Before clocks, schedules, and the Gregorian calendar ruled our lives, Indigenous peoples across the world followed natural rhythms. In Hawaiʻi, the Kaulana Mahina — the Hawaiian moon calendar — guided planting, fishing, ceremony, and daily life. Other Indigenous cultures did the same, following the stars, seasons, and moons as living guides.

Time was not something to control or measure in neat boxes. It was something to live with, a cycle of birth, growth, rest, and renewal.

The Shift to Linear Time

When colonizers brought the Gregorian calendar, the entire framework of life was reorganized.

The new year no longer began in the season of renewal (October for Hawaiians, spring for many others), but in January — the coldest, quietest time of year.
Work hours and school schedules replaced the flow of daylight and seasons.

Linear progress became the measure of success: always forward, never circling back.

This shift severed us from the cyclical knowledge that our kūpuna lived by. It also disconnected us from ourselves, our health, and our relationship to the ʻāina (land).

Returning to Rhythm

Decolonizing time is about remembering that we are part of these natural cycles. The moon still rises. The tides still shift. Our bodies still move in rhythms, whether we notice or not.

Reclaiming Indigenous ways of keeping time allows us to:

Honor seasons of rest as much as productivity.

Make decisions in harmony with natural forces.

Reconnect to identity, culture, and ʻāina.

In Hawaiʻi, remembering the Kaulana Mahina is one way we begin to heal. By following the moons — Hilo, Hoaka, Kū, Hua, Akua, Hoku, Mahealani, and so on — we return to a rhythm of observation (kilo), ceremony, and care.

Time as Medicine

When we slow down and live in cycles instead of constant deadlines, we remember: Time is medicine. It heals. It repeats. It teaches.

That is the heart of Waimaka Lehua. These planners are not just paper and ink — they are tools for decolonizing how we live. They invite us to pause, observe, and realign our daily lives with the moons, just as our kūpuna once did.

Because sovereignty doesn’t only happen in government — it begins within.
Reclaiming our time is reclaiming ourselves.