🌍 Summer Solstice: where to go and what it means🌞
Plus sounds for the sunrise, our fave sunscreen and LOEWE tees made from orange peel
Welcome to BRiMM, the collective, journal and planet-positive shop here to help you live a lower-impact life, without life feeling less
It’s not long at all now until we can introduce our own LIVE online shop, filled with our fave earth-conscious items that both do what they say on the (recycled) tin and look, smell and feel design-led and delicious. And while we’re on the topic of all things delish, this week we’re serving up details of what will be included in our upcoming BRiMM Pantry Essentials Reset Box – see below.
Then in real LIFE, a quick reminder that you can come along and meet us at our Future Fabrics Expo 2025 stand over in North Greenwich from Tue 24-Wed 25 June. Come touch, smooth on, sniff and waft our soon-to-launch self-care, pantry and cleaning Reset Boxes.
This week’s theme is… the Summer Solstice and natural connection 🌞
“Margate is where the Summer Solstice feels most alive. Turner captured these sunsets – wild, glowing, unforgettable. Looking at this photo taken on Solstice 2022, I felt that same heat, but also a warning: the world’s warming like a kettle left boiling for too long. The Solstice here isn’t just the longest day; it’s a moment to witness nature’s strength and vulnerability side by side. The sky over Margate tells a story every year – bright, bold, urgent. It reminds us why this place is perfect for marking the turning of the seasons and the state of our changing world.” Matt Hardisty, the architect behind BRiMM’s brand and marketing strategy
The thing about the sun, once you start thinking about it, considering it, looking up at it (without actually looking at it) – is that suddenly you realise it’s everywhere.
Because, of course, it’s the source of so much of our energy (and more on that from us very soon). Our life fuel.
It affects our sleep patterns and circadian rhythms, more than the limelight- (moonlight-?) hogging moon.
Even our happiness and health is all tied up with the Vitamin D it pours down on and into us.
Walking up Primrose Hill this week one sunshiney morning, we noticed an ode to it under our feet (William Blake’s “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill”.) In the news this week, not as high up as it should have been, we noticed this sublime first ever sighting of its shimmering south pole. (And we won’t mention, directly after something so seismic, that one of our young sons also inexplicably told us he’d had a bowel movement shaped just like it, which was a very stark, and timely, metaphor for how it feeds all of us).
So the Solstice is the very epitome of all that and more, with our celebration of it dating back to the beginnings of the Neolithic era, ie 10,200 BC. And oh – in case you’re wondering, this year it’s happening on Saturday 21 June 2025, at 3:41 am BST – in the Northern Hemisphere, at least.
Feeling inspired? Where did you spend your greatest Summer Solstice? Where are you going next weekend? What does it mean to you generally, what does it evoke? We want to know – send us over the full-watt, full-beam story. We can’t wait to shine a light on it – just like this peak Summer Solstice memory from Tiff, our editorial and fashion advisor.
“My finest Summer Solstice so far was spent at Wasing [Estate in West Berkshire] two years ago where I finally stayed up through the night to greet the dawn – I've tried so many times at Stonehenge etc but it's always pouring with rain, cold and miserable and a total fail. 2023 at Wasing was a perfect midsummer eve. It's a no-alcohol festival (my first) which lends a really Midsummer Nights’ Dream atmosphere - there is very little noise, no one shouting, just music and people listening. At midnight there were about 500 people round a campfire listening to a song and you could hear a pin drop. Josh (the steward of the estate) led a ceremony up a hill at sunrise which was very moving (on intention setting) and then the best bit was after breakfast when the DJs kicked in in the forest and everyone was ecstatic and danced through to midday. I drove back to town and went to work – it was quite the experience.”
Team up, tune in and let’s turn the tide,
BRiMM x
P.s. You still have time to become a founder member and pay a one-off lifetime fee of £200. After the slots go the same level of membership will be £180 a year. So we think it’s a great deal not least because the membership pays for itself in no time (as well as supporting the planet). Phew! Just join the waitlist at no cost now. Refer a friend and you’ll both get a further £20 off and have a shot at an entirely free membership.
📢IT’S A BRIMM THING📢
Introducing the third in our Reset Box curation series – and this time we’re moving from your bathroom over to the main room of most houses these days, with the BRiMM Pantry Essentials Reset Box.
Our Commercial Director Christabel Biella is our resident foodie who knows the world of small, tasty makers very well having worked at the likes of FarmDrop and Oddbox previously, as well as from being an avid cook herself. Here she explains how she personally selected each of these choice items, following many rounds of testing and trialling and comparing, and yes, more team tasting, plus the story behind them all in this latest Journal roundup.
The BRiMM Solstice Questionnaire
This week we’re mixing it up and handing over to David Johnston, founder of ‘We Don't Know What This Is' – aka sunrise gatherings every equinox and solstice that have been taking place on Hackney Marshes since 2023, and which are quickly and joyfully gaining in sunny size and momentum. Here he shares a little more on their backstory and exactly what goes on.
How did these sunrise gatherings come about?
“Believe it or not, it started in a dream.
Feverish, half-dreaming, I had a vision of people gathering at dawn on Hackney Marshes. A particular spot.
Watching the sunrise. Silent. Together. Like they'd always done it. Like it mattered. It seemed important and so I told my friend, the poet Thomas Sharp. He didn’t laugh. He just said: “That’s a premonition. You have to make it happen.”
So we did.
Who comes?
“All sorts: young and old, queer and straight, dogs and babies. Sunrise doesn’t discriminate, it levels us and for me, that’s the magic. On the Marshes, there’s no algorithm curating who shows up. It’s just who’s brave enough to get out of bed at 4am and curious enough to wonder what might happen when we do... together. For me it’s Hackney as it really is: messy, beautiful and quietly epic.”
What's the vibe?
“Boring, magical and everything in between. Sometimes the sun doesn’t show up, but that’s never really the point. We’ve had mist, mud, freezing fog and full technicolour glory. With music, movement, meditation art… you are simply invited to ‘bring your thing’ should you wish to, whatever that is. The feeling is gentle – like an exhale. A soft collective ‘yes’ to the idea that presence can be powerful, even in stillness. You come, you sit, you listen. And somehow you leave changed.”
Why do you think they're becoming so popular?
“It’s hard to say exactly, but maybe, in a time when systems are cracking and certainties are thinning, we’re looking for something older than ‘progress'. Something human. Something true? For me, these gatherings aren’t just a reaction – they’re an echo, of solstice fires and equinox rituals, and people long before us pausing to mark the turn of the earth. And so maybe it’s because something in us remembers – remembers how to gather – how to greet the dawn not with urgency, but with reverence.”
What's your number one Summer Solstice piece of advice?
“Don’t look at your phone for at least an hour after sunrise. It's called golden hour. Let the light get to you before the world does.”
Anything else you'd like our readers to know?
“It’s grown from five people to hundreds gathering in the dark to meet the light. No agenda. Just the signal reaching those who wish to receive it. It’s not a wellness thing. Or a branding thing. Or even really a thing. It’s a gentle refusal. A ritual for the future disguised as something ancient. It’s not the answer. But it might be the question. Join us.”
To learn more, join the WhatsApp group (where you’ll find location, timing and more) and show up next Saturday, check out their IG: We Don't Know What This Is.
Fancy telling us about your own special planet-positive gatherings? Get in touch
FROM THE COLLECTIVE
Sam loves that LOEWE is turning orange peels into T-shirts. Here’s how.
Matt is looking forward to this virtual Open Masterclass on Tuesday this week, on The Psychology of Systems Change with Dr. Renée Lertzman.
Claire’s happy that Jump the Hedges’ Farm to Garment women’s tee is now available again in a final restock.
We love to hear what our collective is finding. Share your links with Becky.
“COMPARING THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY”
As well as Shakespeare referencing it in his most famous sonnet and writing A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, an entire play that uses the Solstice as its backdrop (though, curiously, doesn’t directly talk about it much), there are hundreds of examples of canonical literature inspired by our star and its big day. Take this quick little dit by Derek Walcott, entitled Midsummer, Tobago:
Broad sun-stoned beaches.
White heat.
A green river.
A bridge,
scorched yellow palms
from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.
Days I have held,
days I have lost,
days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.
Then there are all the films, like the rather harrowing Florence Pugh-starring 2019 cult horror, Midsommar (prepare yourself if you’re going to watch it – and definitely don’t do so with your teenage children, like we did.) Plus the libraries of beautiful non-fiction out there – including this awesome audio extract from The Old Ways by number-one nature writer Rob MacFarlane, about that other Solstice, the one even now we know will come, in mid-winter.
→ LISTEN TO MORE
SOLSTICE-STYLE SLOW TRAVEL
Besides the likes of Hackney Marshes, Margate, Wasing, Scotland (which has some great solstice spots, btw) and many other special spots in the UK and Ireland (some of which are good for camping and caravanning, too) – another planet-positive Solstice adventure could involve catching a train somewhere the light rages on the most. Parts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Russia, Iceland, Norway and Finland can all experience 24-hour daylight on the day – and Sweden. You could head to Skansen, the latter’s oldest open-air museum and zoo, where celebrations including dancing, music, markets and the tales of a ‘wise old woman’, last three whole days. Maybe just don’t watch Midsommar beforehand. Tempted? Let us know if you spontaneously go for it after reading this.
→ FIND OUT MORE
WE ALL SCREAM FOR SUNSCREEN
“Wearing an SPF everyday is a non-negotiable for me, though perhaps not for most,” says BRiMM’s Head of Beauty, Sam. “This face sun cream may well convert the non-appliers among us though.” Evolve, a brand that can soon be found in our Luxury British Brands Reset Box, formulates and distributes in small batches from their Hertfordshire-based studio and have worked seriously hard to create a light, perfect-under-foundation, even reef-friendly SPF. Founder Laura has been creating nature-inspired skincare with proven results for more than 15 years and her transparency about aiming to become a ‘better brand’ has always struck a chord. Sharing that you're not perfect but are on a path to ‘do better’ sits well with us at BRiMM. Featuring UVA and UVB defence, this non-nano Zinc Oxide-based SPF 30 also melts in without leaving a white cast. Check out what else is inside the box now.
→ READ MORE
REAP WHAT WE SOW
“A tomato from Spain grown in open sun may have a lower footprint than a local one from a heated UK greenhouse in winter.” So explains Mark Shayler in his brilliant launch piece for BRiMM’s Journal, which highlights how tweaking a handful of diet and drink choices throughout our day-to-days is just about the most impactful thing we can do to improve both our own health and that of our global home. As well as clearly explaining the problems with our food systems today, the clear alternative options we should move towards and what we as individuals can easily do to make a difference, Mark busts some myths along the way, starting with the fact that: “How your food is grown often matters more than how far it travels.” For more mindblowing insights, go check out his feature.
→ DISCOVER MORE
COTTAGECORE
“Right now, I’m craving a rich, comforting lentil cottage pie,” says regular Journal contributor Lisa Oxenham. Hers will be on our site soon – in the meantime, why not check out this luscious Able & Cole take.
→ MAKE THIS
MUSIC TO SEE THE SUNRISE TO
“You can get a feel for the atmosphere of previous gatherings from these soundscapes, captured and mixed by Steven Boardman,” says ‘We Don't Know What This Is' Summer Solstice Guru, David, above. Transcendental.
The carbon footprint of an email depends what device you use to open it, but sending you this one used about 3.5g of carbon.
Thank you for the interview, see you at sunrise 🌞