Reflections on the many moments in November that have us turning inward — including All Souls Day, Election Day and Thanksgiving.
by Jim Dodson | illustration by Gerry O’Neil

Long ago, I decided that November is the most sacred month. To my way of thinking, on so many levels, no other month holds as much mystery, beauty and spiritual meaning. The gardener in me is always relieved when the weather turns sharply cooler and there’s an end to the constant fever of pruning and weeding.
Once the leaves are gathered up and everything is cut back and mulched for the winter, the bare contours of the earth around me become a living symbol — and annual reminder — of life’s bittersweet circularity and the relative brevity of our journey through it.
The hilly old neighborhood where we reside boasts mammoth oaks and sprawling maples that shelter us in summer and stand like druid guardians throughout the year, season after season. Of course, there is a risk in living among such soulful giants of the forest. Every now and then, one of them drops a large limb or, worse, topples over. Still, we care for them and hope they don’t fall on us.
Speaking of “soul,” no month spiritually embodies it better than November. All Souls’ Day comes on the second day of the eleventh month, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed observed by Christians for centuries. The day before All Souls’ is All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day or the Feast of All Saints, a celebration in honor of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown.
Every four years, the first Tuesday that follows the first Monday of November is Election Day, a day considered sacred by citizens who believe in the right to vote their conscience and practice democracy.
Congress established this curious day of voting in 1845 on the theory that, since a majority of Americans were farmers or residents of rural communities, their harvests would have been completed, with severe winter weather yet to arrive that could impede travel.
Tuesday was also chosen so that voters could attend church on Sunday and have a full day to travel to and from their polling place, arriving home on Wednesday, just in time for traditional market day.
Like daylight saving time, some critics believe “Tuesday voting” is a relic of a bygone time, requiring modern voters to balance a busy workday with the sacred obligation of voting. (I fall into the camp that advocates a newly established voting “holiday weekend” that would begin with the first Friday that follows the first Thursday of November, allowing three full days to exercise one’s civic obligation, throw a nice neighborhood cookout and mow the lawn for the last time.)
While we’re in the spirit of reforming the calendar, would someone please ditch daylight saving time, which totally wrecks the human body’s natural circadian rhythm? Farmers had it right: Rise with the sun and go to bed when it sets.
Next up in November’s parade of sacred moments is Veterans Day, which arrives on the 11th, a historic federal holiday that honors military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. It was established in the aftermath of World War I with the signing of the Armistice with Germany, which went into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In 1954, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day at the urging of major U.S. military organizations.
November’s gentler sunlight — at least here in the Northern Hemisphere — feels like a benediction falling across the leafless landscape, quite fitting for a month where we go “inside,” literally and figuratively, to celebrate the bounty of living on Earth. In the Celtic mind, late autumn is the time of the “inner harvest,” when gratitude and memory yield their own kind of fertility.
“Correspondingly, when it is autumn in your life, the things that happened in the past, the experiences that were sown in the clay of your heart, almost unknown to you, now yield their fruit,” wrote the Irish poet John O’Donohue.
First celebrated in 1621, Thanksgiving was decreed “a day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer” on Nov. 26, 1789 by George Washington. It was proclaimed a national holiday on the last Thursday of November by Abraham Lincoln. Finally, during the Great Depression in 1939, it was moved to the third Thursday of the month by Franklin Roosevelt to extend Christmas shopping days.
But for most folks, the observance of Thanksgiving embodies, I suspect, many of the things we hold sacred in life: the gathering of families, memories of loved ones, lots of laughter, good food and friendly debates over football and politics. I give extra thanks for Thanksgiving every year — especially the day after, when some who hold Black Friday a sacred ritual disappear. That’s when I’m free to enjoy a “loaded” turkey sandwich and take a nice long nap by the fire to celebrate my own favorite holiday.
This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.