2026, The Year of The Horse
Thoughts between slowing down and running as fast as you can - 2026 is moving at inhuman speed. Here's what a hill full of horses taught me about surviving it.
2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse, which according to Google’s Gemini is
“a rare combination occurring every 60 years that symbolizes intense energy, rapid transformation, independence, and bold action…. It represents a high-paced, competitive, and passionate year, encouraging innovation and risk-taking, but requiring management to avoid burnout, impulsivity, or volatility.
If you reflect on the events of the past 4 weeks, The Year of The Horse description feels humorously “on the nose”, whether you believe in the Chinese Lunar Zodiac or not.
The Power of AI is exploding — logarithmically — before our eyes.
The balance of power is in choppy seas; a yellow rubber duck in a bath tub that someone is aggressively splashing.
A few weeks ago, a CEO — little known outside the tech industry — told the US government no.1 Open AI bought a formerly-burnt-out-CEO’s AI project he vibe-coded on a 3 month sabbatical for millions of dollars.2 “Anyone can code” is more true than it ever was in 2015 when I semi-irrationally convinced myself I could do it. 3
In part thanks to “The Claw”, your mobile information firehose4 just cranked up 100x in speed and pressure. Half the content we’re consuming isn’t even written by real humans.5 It’s literally an inhuman amount of information. 6
Human bodies have never had to process this rate of information before. Our mere human hardware wasn’t built for this kind of processing.
So what do you do? First, you panic. You feel behind. Useless. Not good enough. And that’s what hooks you back into the loop. You try harder. Consume more. Read more. Run Faster. “Feeling behind and overwhelmed” is a theme that has come up in almost every in-person interaction I’ve had this month.
Even when you disengage, the overstimulation lingers; your nervous system keeps buzzing like an overheated computer you just tried to shut off.
We’re 1 month into Year Horse - intense energy, rapid transformation… check and check. We have 11 more months of this… :sweat_smile:
On that note — let me tell you a little story about horses.
When I first embarked on my Creative Sabbatical — I felt so free. I felt like a wild stallion, finally released from confinement, galloping, flying full speed into a cinematic sunset.
When I wrote that in my journal, I had no idea there was a “horse year” life theme on the horizon. A few months into my Creative Sabbatical, I was invited to an Equine Meditation Retreat in Lucas Valley7. I almost didn’t go, but I’m glad I did. It was at that retreat that I first learned about “Horse Time.”
What is “Horse Time”?
Horse Time is a horsemanship concept referring to operating on the horse’s schedule rather than the humans’.
Horse Time emphasizes patience, presence, and moving at a slower, non-judgmental pace. It involves letting go of rigid agendas to focus on relationship building, safety and mutual understanding.
Back in June 2025, I started doing The Artist’s Way 8 as part of my Creative Sabbatical9. At the end of last week, I was feeling the buzz.10 I needed a computer break. Big time. What’s the opposite of computers? Nature. So I decided to visit The Horse Hill Preserve in Mill Valley for my weekly Artist’s Date with myself. I’d never been there before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect really. I typed “Horse Hill Preserve” into Google Maps. A few minutes later, I found myself in a little parking lot at the base of a big green hill, adjacent to a pen of horses and a trailhead.
Horse Hill is exactly what it sounds like — a hill with horses. It’s a quiet, little known trail in Mill Valley just off the Tiburon exit of the 101, tucked behind a quaint cul-de-sac of charming Northern California bungalows. The horses live a nice life. Various owners and volunteers come to care for them daily — they get food, water, and grooming in the pen at the base of the hill. Otherwise, they are free to roam the entire hill side at their leisure. And the cool part is you can just go hiking and hang out with them there (from a safe distance).
So that’s what I did. I got out of my car. And wandered up the trailhead to the top of the hill.
And I sat down.
By myself.
With the horses.
And I took this photo:
A quiet sanctuary where horse time begets the San Francisco skyline. A perfect picture of a paradoxical antidote to modern times.
We sat there for a while together not moving. Horses are really good at not moving. They can not move for a long time. The quiet of the horses competes with wind and the roar of traffic on the 101. I thought a lot about “Horse Time”.
A quick review of the key “horse time” concepts reads like a manual for surviving these human times.
Patience: allowing tasks to take as long as necessary without forcing them, which prevents emotional shutdown in horses. (*and humans).
Presence: being fully present in the moment rather than focused on a strict, time-crunched schedule. (*or arbitrary product deadlines)
Therapeutic Value: many people use this concept to describe calming, non-riding, “hands-on” time at the barn to reduce stress. (*or digital detoxes)
Antidote to Perfectionism: it encourages focusing on authentic connection rather than perfect performance. (*omg high performing over achievers, can you even imagine?!?)
Full Circle — It’s The Year of The Horse.
It’s the year of the Horse. 2026. The Horse represents movement, courage, intuition, and breakthroughs. The Fire Horse — a wild, muscular stallion standing before the horizon with untamed momentum, possibility and power — a perfect mirror for this transformative chapter in human history.
But remember the key — If you move too fast, you’ll miss it.
To see the whole picture, you have to look a little closer. And move a little slower. With patience. Presence. Non-judgment. Toward human relationships. Safety. Mutual understanding.
Life is going to quickly sweep you away from this post. That’s okay. But do me one favor? For yourself. A gift from you to you. When you feel the buzz. Remember:
Make some time to move on horse time.
The US government is not used to anyone telling it what it’s allowed to do. On February 27th, 2026 - one week into the year of the horse - The US Government, under President Donald Trump, ordered all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic’s AI technology because it’s CEO would not allow their models to be used in mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems. The next day, February 28th, 2026, US Forces launched Operation Epic Fury, eliminating 40 top Iranian Leaders.
On February 14, 2026 (3 days before Lunar NY), OpenAI spent a few million dollars to “acqui-hire” Peter Steinberger, founder of OpenClaw. In an article with Forbes, Peter describes building OpenClaw during a 3 month sabbatical he took to recover from burn out.
The rise of Open Claw has unleashed a coding renaissance. Designers, Product Managers, Operators and Venture Capitalists picked up coding for the first time in years, writing and sharing new apps and projects in essays, YouTube, and podcasts. GitHub Commit maps have never been so green. A friend who works in sales vibe-coded and shipped a gorgeous, usable parenting app in a few weeks. A 4.5M venture funded startup, led by seasoned product engineers working in the same space still hasn’t launched after more than a year. The playing field is leveling.
I’m talking about the phone. The phone in your hand.
The first week of March — 2 weeks into the horse year — improvements to agentic AI tools and workflows tore open the gap between casual AI chatbot users and AI power-users, widening the divide by an exponential leap. Techfluencers across LinkedIn, SubStack, and X flooded the interwebs with long-form articles on Claude CoWork best practices, Agentic Workflows, Open Claw rogue agent horror stories and Automate Everything tutorials.
It’s sophisticated bots writing at sophisticated bot speeds. And it compounds. Agent-bots read what the other agent-bots wrote, while the few early adopter techfluencers sit back making money off of a mix of human and agent-bots reading and subscribing to their bot articles. If you are a real human, not using agent-bots, it doesn’t always occur to you that you’re reading someone else’s agent-bot-output.
It was a weekend of meditation and hanging out with horses trained to do equine therapy. TLDR, I now believe that hanging with horses is meaningful therapy. I felt better after that weekend.
There are two main components of The Artist’s Way: 1. Daily Morning Pages — you commit to 3 pages of freehand/non-digital stream of consciousness writing. 2. Weekly Artist Dates — a 1-2 hour adventure you take to nurture your inner artist child. There aren’t really rules, it just has to be something inspiring, reflective, or creative.
Coming Soon — Part 4 of Tech Girls Guide to Finding Your Light Again. I’ll tell you all about my Creative Sabbatical and how I recovered from Burn Out. It’s WIP.
The buzz as in when your nervous system keeps buzzing like an overheated computer you just tried to shut off.
Love hearing your thoughts as always Carly!!