“Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you…”
— Coldplay, Yellow
I must say, I have spent many nights under stars, from Sutherland here in South Africa, to Vik and The Faroe Islands, but I have never seen the night sky like I did this weekend. Brighter, darker and deeper than I’ve ever seen before…
Storms River breathes in a way that feels ancient, like the trees and the ocean are whispering secrets only the wind can understand. There is something timeless here, something untouched by the noise of modern life. The forest hums with a language older than words, spoken in the rustling of leaves, the rhythm of waves, the deep inhale of the earth after rain. To stand here is to feel that language seep into your bones, to remember that before we measured time in hours and minutes, it was counted in the slow turn of seasons, in the ebb and flow of tides, in the rise and fall of breath.
Last night, wrapped in the silence of the forest, I woke up at 4 a.m., pulled from my sleep, uncomfortable blow up mattresses and everything that goes with it… But in this moment, not a dream, not a sound—just a presence, a feeling that the night itself had called my name. A real love affair with the Universe. There was a hush in the air, the kind that isn’t empty but full, waiting. As I stepped outside, I felt it settle around me like a second skin. The world, so often restless and crowded, had drawn still. And above me, the sky had split wide open—a million stars staring back, scattered across the dark like embers still burning from some forgotten fire. Their quiet radiance stretched beyond thought, beyond time, as if to remind me that even the vastness of space is not empty, but alive with light.
The Language of the Forest, The Language of the Sky
There are places in this world where time bends, where the past and the present blur, where you can feel something older than yourself moving through the land. Storms River is one of them. It is in the way the trees lean into each other like old companions sharing a secret. It is in the way the river carves its path through stone, unhurried and relentless. It is in the way the ocean rises and falls, breathing with the pulse of the earth.
And at night, it is in the way the stars stand watch.
Some places are sacred not because they were built to be, but because they simply are. You feel it in your chest the moment you arrive. Maybe it’s the way the air tastes—cleaner, saltier, richer with the scent of damp earth. Maybe it’s the way your footsteps soften on the forest floor, the way your voice lowers instinctively, as if speaking too loudly would break some fragile spell. Here, silence isn’t absence. It is presence.
And when the night stretches over this place, something deep within you stretches too. Something opens.
The Stars as Witnesses
“I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called ‘Yellow’”
I have spent too long wrestling with the weight of my own thoughts, turning them over and over, looking for answers that never come. I have let regret shape me, let the past tether me to its ghost. But standing under this sky, something shifts. The burden does not disappear, but it loosens, as if the universe is whispering:
“It was never yours to carry alone.”
I can feel my grip loosening, but have always felt like I was the only one who could carry some of this stuff. There is something humbling about standing beneath the stars. It is not the humbling that diminishes you, that makes you feel small in a way that aches. No. It is the kind that expands you. The kind that reminds you that you are part of something too vast to be contained, too intricate to be an accident.
The stars burn, unbothered by entropy or pain, watching as we move through our small and fragile lives. And yet, they are not distant. They are not indifferent.
It is easy to believe that the universe is cold, that it spins on without care, that we are insignificant against its vastness. But looking up, I do not feel abandoned.
I feel held.
The stars are not watchers—they are witnesses. They are not distant; they are near, written into our very being, the same stardust that formed them resting in our bones. In their endless glow, I see something that feels like home. Not a place, not a destination, but a knowing. A reminder that existence is not about control, not about fixing every broken piece, but about surrendering to something larger.
Not in defeat, but in trust.
The Ache of Being Human
I have been thinking about everyone. About how we drift past each other in grocery aisles and crowded streets, how we sit beside strangers on buses, in waiting rooms, never knowing the battles they carry.
How loneliness does not always announce itself—it hides in polite smiles, in the spaces between words. How we are all, in some way, searching for the same thing: connection, understanding, a place where we can lay down our burdens and be seen.
The world aches, not just in the places where war rages or where disaster strikes, but in the quiet corners of bedrooms, in the silence after a phone call that never came, in the spaces where love once lived.
And yet, when I look at the stars—when I really look—I see someone else.
I see the quiet presence that has always been there, waiting.
I see the hand that has never let go, even when I thought I was alone.
I see a reflection of something truer than my fear, truer than my doubt.
I see myself, not as the questions I have been asking, but as the stillness between them.
A Light That Calls Us Home
“Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
And you know
You know I love you so”
So, I stand in the deep of the night, under the Storms River sky, and let the stars name me again.
Not lost. Not alone.
Just here. Just light. Just part of it all.
And maybe, in this vast and waiting universe, you are standing somewhere, looking up too. Maybe, in this moment, neither of us are alone.
Maybe we never were.
Because no matter where we are, the same stars watch over us. They have seen empires rise and fall, seen lovers carve their names into tree trunks, seen children wish on them before they even understood what a wish was. They have watched over the lost and the found, the searching and the settled. They have burned through history, through war and peace, through the rise and fall of lifetimes. And yet, they remain.
A map of light across the sky. A quiet promise written.
Tonight, I take a breath and let it all go—the questions, the doubt, the need to have everything figured out. I listen to the hush of the forest, the whisper of the wind, the endless rhythm of the ocean. I let the night name me again. And maybe, somewhere under this same sky, you are doing the same.
Maybe, for a moment, we are both looking up.
And maybe, for a moment, that is enough.
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