Before November Was November
The Romans never meant for November to be the eleventh month. The name comes from novem, Latin for "nine," a leftover from a time when the Roman year began in March and ran only ten months. Count forward from the spring, and November lands exactly where its name says it should.
Then came January and February, added to the calendar and eventually moved to the front of the year.
Every month after them slipped two places, but the old names stayed. Somewhere in our calendar, the ancient Roman year is still quietly counting.
We love that. A month carrying a memory of an older way of keeping time.
And November, for the Romans, was a month of thresholds. On the eighth, the mundus was opened, a ritual pit understood as a doorway to the underworld, left uncovered on only a few days of the year.
On those days, the line between the living and the dead was said to grow thin.
If that sounds familiar after Samhain, you're not imagining it.
Different people, different gods, the same instinct: as the light fades and the fields go quiet, we turn toward our ancestors.
Then, on the thirteenth, the mood shifts. The Epulum Jovis was a sacred banquet where the gods were honored as guests at the table, with food laid out for them and shared among the living.
After the doorway to the dead, a feast. After the dark, a meal.
That pairing feels right for this month: remembering the dead, and then setting a table.
This November, we will be exploring both.
