Gabrielle Mirkin was an art director at Vogue when Lyme disease made her so sick she had to leave New York and go home to New Zealand. There, beekeeper friends kept their hives among the mānuka trees, and the honey helped her heal. This conversation is about how that healing became her brand, Activist, and how love has always carried her through every loss.Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5rN23LuZ44SsuQ66kgVFS5Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-of-feeling/id6816540706Show notes: https://www.stateoffeeling.com/podcast/gabrielle-mirkin-love-through-lossGabrielle Mirkin grew up on an avocado farm in New Zealand, where mānuka honey was the medicine for everything: a sore throat, a stomach ache, a scraped knee. Years later, she was an art director at Harper's Bazaar and then Vogue, living her childhood dream, when Lyme disease and the antibiotics made her so sick she had to leave her job and NYC to return home to New Zealand. She and her husband moved into an old black barn among the mānuka trees, and used the honey to rebuild her immune system and restore her gut health. Out of that healing, she and her husband started Activist Mānuka, and have since made it their life's work.Gabrielle and Roanne talk about bringing an art director's eye to a raw, unadulterated product, and why you can always feel when a brand was built without love. They discuss the losses she has endured since: her home in Topanga to the LA fires, the month her two-year-old son spent in a coma, and the passing of her mother, who lives on through the hummingbirds, the rainbows, and the owls. Running through all of it is Gabrielle's belief that suffering brings wisdom, and that love is what carries you through.In this episode:• Mānuka honey as the Kiwi medicine of choice• NYC life as an art director at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue• A Lyme disease diagnosis, and a year of antibiotics that only made her sicker• Reluctantly quitting her job and moving home to New Zealand to heal among the mānuka trees• How the honey helped restore her immune system and heal her gut• The launch of Activist and its focus on high-grade, monofloral mānuka honey• The thoughtful design and art direction of the Activist brand• "Not another beige beauty brand": treating each product like a piece in a fashion collection• Why you can feel it when a brand starts with love instead of a business plan• Raw mānuka oil from a remote, off-grid island five hours by boat from the mainland• The dream of bringing people to New Zealand for the harvest• Losing their Topanga home in the LA fires, and watching the land grow back• Her son's month in a coma, his recovery, and the strength it gives her family• Seeing her mom in the hummingbirds, the rainbows, and the owlsContent note: this conversation includes discussion of serious illness, a child's hospitalization, and losing a home to fire.Activist Mānuka: https://www.activistmanuka.comActivist on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/activistmanukaGabrielle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabrielle___eve/Follow State of Feeling: https://www.instagram.com/state_of_feeling/Roanne Adams: https://www.instagram.com/roanneadams/Substack: https://stateoffeeling.substack.com/Creator & host: Roanne AdamsDirector & editor: Nick Stumpf, Ten Ten MediaMusic: Phil AcetoSpecial thanks: Rachel Comey for wardrobe, Johnny Wahba for support
