Standing at the Threshold

We woke this morning on the 21st December 2025 with bodies still tired from the flu. Taylor had shaken it off a few days earlier, but Glenn's recovery was slower, his immune system working harder than most. The kind of tired that settles deep into your bones and reminds you that you're human, that even when you're building something you believe in, your body still has the final say.

Glenn filled his thermos with Lemsip, and we settled onto the sofa to watch what we watch every year at this time.

The Light Returns

The Newgrange winter solstice livestream is one of those rare things that manages to be both ancient and immediate. Every year, weather permitting, the cameras inside that 5,000 year old passage tomb capture the moment when the rising sun aligns perfectly with the narrow entrance, sending a shaft of light down the long corridor into the chamber at its heart.

It's a feat of Neolithic engineering that still astounds. Those people, our ancestors on this island, understood something profound about darkness and light, about cycles and return, about the certainty that even in the deepest part of winter, the sun would turn back towards us.

This morning, as we watched through tired eyes, the clouds finally parted. The light made its way down that ancient passage, just as it has for millennia. Just as it was designed to do.

And something in us settled.

The Drive to Poll na Brón

We'd been talking for weeks about going to Poll na Brón on the solstice. Not for content, not for marketing, but because it felt right. BRÍ is about to be born properly into the world. After years of planning, formulating, testing, refining, we're standing at our own threshold. The soft launch is behind us. The real launch is ahead. And we're somewhere in between, wrapped in fog and hope and a bit of trepidation.

So we bundled up. Hats, scarves, coats. The 25 minute drive from Ennis out into the Burren started in thick fog. That particular winter fog that turns the world soft and unknowable, where you can barely see the road ahead of you, where everything feels muffled and close.

Ireland's karst landscape, already otherworldly on the clearest day, becomes something else entirely in fog. The limestone disappears. The ancient field walls fade. You're driving through mystery itself, trusting that the road will keep appearing under your wheels.

And then, inexplicably, in those last few kilometres, the fog began to lift.

Maybe it was blind luck. Maybe it was the slight change in elevation as the land rises toward the dolmen. Maybe it was something else. But as we pulled into the small gravel area near Poll na Brón, the mist had pulled back just enough to let the morning light through.

Stone Remembers

Poll na Brón Portal Tomb stands in a shallow depression in the Burren, a massive capstone balanced on upright portal stones. It's been there for over 5,000 years. Long before the English language existed. Long before Christianity reached these shores. Long before most of what we think of as history even began.

People were buried here. Not just one or two, but many, over centuries. Babies and adults, their bones intermingled in the chamber beneath the capstone. The dead were placed here with care, with ceremony, with the kind of attention that speaks of love and grief and the desperate human need to honour those who've gone before.

When archaeologists excavated in the 1980s, they found the remains of 33 people. Pottery shards. A polished stone axe. Personal items carefully placed with bodies that mattered to someone.

Standing there this morning, Taylor pulled out some words. Words about standing where others stood when the world was colder, when survival was never promised. Words about witnessing the turning, not commanding it or begging for it, but simply being present to it.

We read them aloud in the cold air. Our breath visible. The fog still clinging to the horizon but cleared enough overhead that we could see the pale winter sun.

"We stand where others stood
when the world was colder,
the nights were longer,
and survival was never promised.
This stone was old
before our oldest stories had names.
It has heard fear and hope
spoken in the same breath."

The Turning Point

The winter solstice is the astronomical moment when the sun reaches its furthest point south, when we have the shortest day and the longest night. But it's also the turning point. The moment when, imperceptibly at first, the light begins to return.

Our ancestors understood this deeply. They built monuments to mark it. They gathered to witness it. They trusted in the return even when the evidence was thin, even when the winter ahead was long and uncertain.

We're standing at our own turning point with BRÍ.

The years of planning are behind us. The late nights researching ingredients, the countless iterations of formulations, the regulatory paperwork, the testing, the refining. Glenn's journey with ulcerative colitis taught us what it means to navigate chronic health challenges while still showing up to life. Taylor's experience with burnout and the toll that unmanaged stress takes on every part of you, from sleep to decision making to simple joy, showed us that wellness isn't about perfection or transformation. It's about steadiness. About finding small rituals that help you keep going.

We built BRÍ for people like us. For people whose stress doesn't make headlines but quietly drains them. For people trying to be present for their families, focused at work, kind to themselves, even when their nervous systems are wired, their sleep is interrupted, their immune systems are struggling.

Four products. Four ways to support yourself through real life.

Hope and Trepidation

Standing at Poll na Brón this morning, still a bit tired, still recovering, we felt the mix of emotions that comes with any threshold moment.

There's excitement, yes. We've worked so hard to get here, and we believe in what we've built. We believe it can genuinely help people find a bit more steadiness in their days.

But there's also trepidation. Launching a business is an act of hope wrapped in uncertainty. We don't know if people will connect with what we're trying to do.

We're heading into unknown territory with hope as our main compass.

And somehow, standing there at that ancient stone this morning, that felt exactly right.

The people who built Poll na Brón didn't know if spring would come. They didn't know if their crops would grow, if their children would survive, if the hunt would be successful. They lived with uncertainty as a constant companion.

But they built monuments to the turning anyway. They marked the moment when darkness reached its fullness and began, impossibly, to retreat.

They witnessed it. Year after year. Generation after generation.

Stone remembers. Land remembers.

And we remember enough to stand still and listen.

What We're Carrying Forward

As we drove back through the Burren, the fog settling in again behind us, we talked about what this moment means. Not just for BRÍ, but for us personally.

We've learned that stress is inevitable. That life doesn't slow down. That wellbeing isn't a straight line and there's no one size fits all solution. We've learned that sometimes your body demands rest even when your mind is racing with plans. We've learned that recovery, whether from illness or burnout or chronic health challenges, requires patience and small, consistent support.

These aren't lessons we read in a book. They're lessons we lived.

And they're woven into every part of BRÍ.

We're not promising quick fixes or transformation. We're offering steady support. Science backed ingredients that work with your body's natural systems. Formulations designed for everyday stress, not crisis moments. A daily ritual that might help you find a bit more calm, a bit more clarity, a bit more resilience.

Supplements for real life. Messy, busy, brilliant life.

As we head into the new year, as the light begins its slow return, we're ready. Ready to share what we've built. Ready to support people who are navigating their own challenges.

The sun has turned back towards us.

And BRÍ is ready to begin.

Mind yourself,

Glenn & Taylor

BRÍ Wellness will officially launch in early 2026. Glenn and Taylor are based in Ennis, County Clare, where they're building Ireland's premium supplement brand with Irish warmth, scientific rigour, and a commitment to realistic, sustainable wellness. In Irish, "brí" speaks to strength and vigour, the steady, sustaining kind that helps you keep going when life feels overwhelming.

Rest well this season. We'll see you in the new year.