Matariki: Looking Back, Being Present, and Building What Comes Next

Today is Matariki, the Māori New Year. I have just come home from New Zealand, where the building community welcomed a pack of us Australians like family, so the timing of it has been sitting with me all week. I want to say up front that this is not my tradition. I am a builder from Tasmania and a grateful guest to it. But what it teaches about time is something I try to live by, and it is worth sharing.

What Matariki is

Matariki is the name of a cluster of stars, the ones known elsewhere as the Pleiades. When they rise in the mid-winter sky, they mark the turning of the Māori year. It is a time to pause, reflect and reconnect, and it carries three themes that I think are close to perfect.

You look back and remember those who have passed since the stars last rose. You celebrate the present by sharing food with the people around you. And you look to the future, setting your intentions for the year ahead, guided by Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the wishing star.

Remember, celebrate, look forward. Past, present, future, all held at once. This year’s theme, Matariki Herenga Waka, means the gathering of many canoes, a coming together of people from every background. After the fortnight I just had, being welcomed so openly across the Tasman, that landed hard.

The same three tenses build everything

Here is why it struck me as a builder. You build a house, a business and a life the same way you move through Matariki. All three tenses matter, and most of us are only ever really living in one.

Look back. Honour where you came from. The foundation you stand on was poured by the people who backed you, the jobs that went wrong and taught you, the version of you that kept going when it was hard. I have written before about being at my lowest more than a decade ago, in New Zealand of all places, with the house on the market to save the business. I do not dwell there, but I do not pretend it did not happen either. It is part of the foundation. Remembering it keeps me grateful, and gratitude is a better fuel than fear.

Be present. Do the work in front of you, properly, with the people around you now. This is the one builders are usually best at and business owners are usually worst at. We are so busy chasing the next thing that we rush past the job, the team, the family that are right here today. Matariki says stop, share a meal, be with your people. That is not time off from building a good life. That is the building.

Look forward. Set your intentions and keep the plan in view. I am a big believer in this. I run planning days, I keep a dashboard, I journal most nights. Not because I am organised by nature, I am not, but because a life and a business drift without a direction. The wishing star is a good reminder that you are allowed to want more, and to say it out loud.

The quiet lesson

The thing I keep coming back to is that these three are not a sequence, they are a balance. Live only in the past and you get stuck. Live only in the present and you drift. Live only in the future and you never actually arrive. A good build, like a good life, holds all three at once: respect for the foundation, full attention on today, and a clear eye on what comes next.

So on Matariki, that is my invitation to you, whatever your background. Take a beat. Remember who and what got you here. Look up from the job long enough to enjoy the people around you. And name one thing you want for the year ahead.

To the New Zealand building community who made us feel so at home, and taught this Australian something worth keeping, thank you. Ngā mihi o Matariki.

Cheers Luke