-27.png)
About Solstice
Solstice is home on the wild west coast of British Columbia, Canada on the ancestral and unceded traditional territory of the Tla'amin, Klahoose, and Homalco Nations. Our studio is nestled in a grove of majestic cedars and twisting arbutus where we are visited by the occasional black bear and serenaded by the boisterous calls of our resident ravens. Respect for the land and connection to its spirit forces is at the heart of everything we do.
​
Solstice began in 2012 as Solstice Stones, born of a dual passion for mineralogy and the occult. In the years that followed, we navigated the opaque and often troubling world of the international crystal trade, establishing a model for ethical sourcing long before it became a trending topic and wider industry concern. Our early efforts earned recognition from Green Matters and the Sierra Club, and we're proud to have influenced a growing wave of businesses that have adopted standards inspired by our own protocols (you can read more about our approach here).
​​
Solstice has since evolved to include jewellery, incense, ceramics, and other sacred wares. Drawing inspiration from archaeology, history, and folklore, Solstice founder Michelle Cunningham weaves form and function to create ritual objects using natural materials and time-honoured methods. Whether shaped from silver, herb, stone, wood, or clay, each piece is sourced and crafted with care - ready for your own consecration and magical work.​​​​
​
​​​
About Michelle
Solstice founder Michelle Cunningham is a writer, maker, queer witch, and folk magic practitioner. A lifelong student of the Mysteries, Michelle forged her own way into the Craft as a teen before receiving initiation with an inclusive Gardnerian coven in Glastonbury, England in 2004. Her path has since been shaped by over two decades of esoteric practice drawn from various Pagan and traditional witchcraft streams, woven through with a devotional relationship to the land, ancestors, and deity. Michelle holds a background in geology and history, which continues to inform the material and symbolic language of her work.
​
In her work researching ethical sources, Michelle has travelled to investigate the illegal trafficking of stones along the Myanmar border, observe dealings at the precious gem markets of Thailand, and inspect conditions at jewellery production facilities in Indonesia. Spurred by her passion for the mineral realm, she has hunted for fossils on the beaches of Dorset, studied opals in South Australia, and rockhounded across the Pacific Northwest. And yet despite these ventures, the real work is often found closer to home. It is the humble geologies underfoot that continue to anchor her practice: communing with the stones and the land, and working with the forces therein.
Michelle's writing features in the latest We Are Aradia anthology Serpents of Circe, edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff and Ron Padrón, published by Revelore Press. She has also worked with Llewellyn author Danielle Blackwood as a consultant for the stones in her two books, The Twelve Faces of the Goddess and A Lantern in the Dark. Michelle currently teaches classes on fossil folklore and mineral magic at Old Stone Ways (oldstoneways.com or @oldstoneways on Instagram).​
​