Stardust

Never one for resolutions, I’m walking into 2026 with a new motto: no goals, just vibes. But what does that even mean? Am I implying I’ll stumble forward blindly? Not quite. It feels more like a slow simmer, something unfolding in its own time.

Have you settled into your bones yet, really settled, the way you sink into a crisp cozy bed after a long day? Have you checked in with yourself the way a cat instinctively curls into the perfect spot? Do you know how low your morale or social battery has dipped? Or have you, like me, been running on automatic, steering through life with every impulse tightly managed just to feel like you have a handle on things?

But is life meant to be handled or controlled? Bound to expectations? Or are we meant to sit inside it, wiggling in its deliciousness, letting it seep into our skin?

Do you have the time or the inclination to loosen the shackles tying you to a pre-scripted life: school, university, job, marriage, family, repeat until the finish line? Add a few holidays, daily prayers, some shopping, an online existence, a little bedroom and sports-field adventure. A neat play with its acts in order, an occasional climax, and plenty of drama.

It’s all good...until it’s not.

Then something in you stirs. A slow detangling begins, you veer off the path and start to reimagine life.

So how might this untethering look in the years ahead?

Imagine...

You’ve stepped out from big tech’s shadow and loosened your grip on capitalist western values. You’ve leaned into a way of being that bends and shifts like water. You opt to live in a small intentional cluster of homes built from bamboo or reclaimed wood. The air smells of earth and fynbos. Energy moves in circles: rooftop panels glowing softly at night, greywater feeding the gardens. Fires call families to communal braais while children run wild. Vegetables, herbs, and fruit come from the land and from hands you know.

Rent isn’t money; it’s contribution: teacher, yogi, architect, designer, seamstress, chef, doctor, engineer, plumber...all sharing skills, telling stories under warm blankets, cups of chai and baked bread. You are not isolated but woven into the tapestry of ancestors, family, and land.

You no longer have a career, you have seasons. A season of writing, filling notebooks with ideas that stir you. A season of crafting with your hands. A season of caretaking, helping others find steadiness. A season of retreat and quiet. Life isn’t measured in hours worked but in bonds and breath. Income comes in gentle waves: workshops, creative commissions, slow coaching, a small handmade line stitched with your soul. Your value isn’t productivity but creativity and contribution.

Part of your year is spent in a matriarchal, nature-based community designed for rest and collaboration. White Days of fasting, herbal gardens, crafting circles, movement classes. Long wooden tables where meals are slow and stories spill into the night. 

There are no deadlines, metrics, spreadsheets, or performance ratings. You experiment freely, collaborate fully, and share whatever you have knowledge, skills, smiles...or silence.

You participate in a new way of learning and teaching, in a school without walls where children and adults learn together. Intuition is honoured as intelligence and emotional literacy is practiced daily. Breathwork calms the nervous system whilst movement tells truths the mouth cannot. Creativity becomes the primary problem-solver. Community replaces static curriculum with something dynamic and alive.

Your relationships begin to take new shapes. You step away from old scripts. You might have seasonal companionship, a relationship alive only for a chapter. You might co-parent without being a couple. You might build a partnership team instead of a nuclear unit. You explore slow love without pressure, deep platonic intimacy, romance rooted in community. Your heart expands into unimagined spaces.

Nutrition is no longer outsourced to conglomerates. You grow your food or know the hands that do. You barter, cook with others, laugh as steam rises. You harvest herbs, trade chutney for scones, linger over long unhurried meals.

Your home becomes light and sustainable, a small pod opening to forest or sea, in harmony with its surroundings. You no longer feel weighed down by owning; you feel buoyant and free.

Technology has become a tool, not a force. You own one simple device, no feeds, ads, algorithms, or hijacking apps. You return to books, letters, real conversations. Philosophical meetups have become commonplace and you expand your mind intentionally.

Your days are punctuated not by alarms but by rituals: early prayers and meditation, midday sun on your face, tea ceremonies just because, music and dancing in quiet evenings, a weekly feast with your community, a monthly thikr session to shed the old.

And what all of this means is simple: you are not escaping life or drifting without direction. You are flowing with intention, creating a slower, deeper, more sensual and communal life.

It is not a fantasy. It is already happening in small pockets of the world. You are simply walking toward it with your eyes open.

Welcome back, dear soul made of stardust. You have wandered far, but here you are again: no goals, just vibes. No scripts, just possibility.