Chuwen, the monkey, is eleventh of the twenty, following Ok the dog: once loyalty stands firm, play and making. The Maya monkey isn't a comic figure — the monkey brothers of the Popol Vuh, Hun B'atz' and Hun Chuwen, are scribes, carvers, painters and musicians, patrons of art and craft. So Chuwen is about creation in its primal form: play — hands on, try it, mess with it, and somewhere in the messing a thing appears.
So Chuwen's mechanism is play and weaving: it joins unrelated things (a monkey swinging tree to tree grabs this branch, then that one) and weaves time into objects. Chuwen is also the midpoint of the Tzolk'in, and among the twenty it governs 'the thread of time'. Its power is fearlessness about trying — you needn't think it through before starting; its difficulty is not finishing — halfway through one game you're off to another.
Where you'll recognise it: curious, itchy-handed, many-talented, a little surprised yourself when the thing comes out, impatient with 'by the book', closing often left to others. Running well, you're the most creative one: turning anything into material, making work fun, producing forms nobody thought of. Stuck, you're scattered or unaccountable — a heap of half-made things, play used as a reason not to answer for anything. In the sequence Chuwen is followed by Eb', the road: when the playing's done, a long road to walk. Your next step isn't opening a new toy. It's picking one and playing it to the end.
