Solstice Sulis

Sulis and the consolations of ritual on the darkest day of the year

Back when I still lived in the big city, I marked the summer and winter solstices as a way of remembering the connection to the land that I grew up with as a child raised in a rural area. There were jokes on Facebook about nights drawing in and days drawing out and friends who rejoiced and came to expect my biannual status updates. In recent years I’ve marked new (to me) notches on the turn of the seasonal wheel – Beltane has long been a fixture (usually as an excuse for much dance and merriment), but my observances have grown over time to include the spring and autumn equinoxes, then Imbolc, Samhain, Lughnasadh … moments in the year that bring me to a pause and a closer observance of shifts in time and season.

These moments are elemental in my imagination – summoning fire especially, and water. It has become something of a ritual to immerse myself fully in water on these sabbat days as a way of embodying the moment, to still my busy mind and body and invoke a spirit of rejuvenation. This year I will dunk myself repeatedly in an old watering pond that used to serve an orchard on the banks of the River Severn and offer myself up to the fire of the sauna that’s been installed on the banks of the pond. Nobody said solsticing had to be austere.

I am of no faith, agnostic by instinct and wary of essentialism, particularly when it comes to gods and goddesses, imbued as they have become with patriarchal binaries passed off as universalism. But I find the observance of seasonal change and the rituals I’ve created around this are small acts of care that connect me more deeply to place and my sense of entanglement with plant, animal, rock and soil. My kind of religion. On the approach to the winter solstice, I find myself turning towards Sulis, (Celtic) goddess of the sun

Sul

Sol

Solstice

Sulevae

Sulis

who was worshipped locally, most famously at the thermal spa at Bath (known as Aquae Sulis) and appropriated by the Romans who hybridised her with their own Minerva, goddess of wisdom. Sulis Minerva was worshipped for her healing powers, her role as guardian, protector against disease and misfortune.

Sulis Minerva / sun wisdom. 

I find myself looking to Sulis as an idea, if not an actual goddess, for the return of the light, life-giving energy and strength at the winter solstice. I visited her for the first time earlier this year at Bath, one of the great religious spas of the ancient world, and was awe-struck by the force of the gushing thermal spring and its heat (46◦c), marvelled at the way the stone steps to the temple had been worn away by pilgrims and the equalising effect of the spa on the community (everyone could and did go there for massage, sauna, gymnasium and gossip).

I was also drawn to the votives that were offered to Sulis, most especially the lead curse tablet inscribed with Brittonic Celt, the only known fragment of written Celt known to survive anywhere. Although contested, translations have been attempted of this fragment by Patrick Sims-Williams (2007) and Bernard Thomas Mees (2009) and refer to a woman, a ‘worthless woman,’ whom the pilgrim called on the goddess to be ‘bound.’

Although she may be a cursed woman (what a backstory that must be), I am touched by the traces of the female in the ancient historical record – I love how this is what the language remembers. I feel something beyond reason in my body about a connection to mark-making and sound, to Welsh (a linguistic descendant of Celtic) and my maternal line which came from there - every day I look across the Severn to the Welsh mountains and it feels like home. I’ve written elsewhere about how my sense of belonging and ancestry is strongly bound to water and a family history that glistens with seafaring tales.

History is essentially a continuing dialogue between the present and the past, our interpretations of history change and we use history in the service of our present needs, but I proudly stake my claim to the poetic license to value an imaginative connection I create with the ancestral past and the enchantments of Sulis. That imagined history remains steadfast while the soft impermanence of the mortal world around me shifts and changes. It fulfils a need for a touchstone, almost a proxy for the sense of family that I’ve lost, a connection to the old ways, through the element of water.

I don’t find this dark time of year easy. Christmas used to be my favourite time of year and it still can be (the dread of it is often righted by kinder reality), but no matter how pragmatic I am about the inevitable losses of time (and about the gains too – especially our children) there is always a lingering feeling of absence, grief and regret that intensifies to the point of pain the closer we get to Christmas. As families gather up and down the country and friends complain of endless commitments and having to endure rather than enjoy this time, I am often left feeling quietly isolated and sad, needing all the light I can get.  

Dunking myself in the modern day frigidarium or watering pond on the winter solstice and laying myself down in the hot box of the sauna is a modern-day re-enactment of a Romano-Celtic ritual, invoking as I will the solace of Sulis as I go. We’ve become so accustomed to feeling guilty about looking after ourselves – capitalism has seen to that – but nobody can drink from an empty cup, just as no one can swim in a dried-up pond. It is OK to give yourself what you need and, if it helps, consider this small act of care a rebellion, against the gloom.

I know that I am not alone in finding sorrow in these darker days, so let me entreat you to cast a votive offering this winter solstice to ask for what you need. As I light a candle and pause for the moment the earth stands still, if this is you, I’m wishing you comfort, equanimity, courage and - as fellow poet Pey Oh so beautifully puts it - ‘light along your path.’

Seasonal ritual

I recently attended a beautiful workshop led by the poet Cath Drake which was the single most nurturing thing I’ve done for my writerly self in a long time. At the end of the workshop she posed some questions which invited us to reflect on what we might need. Taking this idea as inspiration I invite you to pause for a moment this solstice and ask yourself the questions below. Don’t over think this! Give your subconscious a chance to turn up what it already knows.

What do you need to think / write more deeply?

What do you need to light your path?

What do you need to feel more agency?

What do you need to feel more connected?

What do you need to acknowledge and honour your deeper feelings?

What do you need to be kinder?

What do you need to feel more at ease?

What colour do you need? Tell me why.

What aroma?

What textures?

What sounds?

What images do you need?