They call November the month of sadness. The last copper leaves let go, and the colour drains from the hills into grey rain and drifting fog. The sea turns to slate. The lights of Christmas still lie far off, beyond weeks of short, dim days. And still I love this month. Perhaps because it is the month my own light first came on: I was born in November.

The winter sea shows me how to live through it. It slows. It gathers itself into long, heavy swells, draws back from the shore and returns, steady and unhurried. I want to slow down in the same way, out of respect for the distance I have travelled, for all I have learned, and for the light I know is waiting further along the coast. Each birthday feels like the tide turning at the year’s lowest ebb, a quiet invitation to go deeper and to keep pouring meaning into the life I have been given.

November is also a month for giving outward. The sea leaves its gifts without ceremony: a smooth stone at the tideline, a strand of wrack, a shell worn pale by the water. Kindness travels the same way. A word offered at the right moment, a little hard-won wisdom, a hand held out in the fog. These small things carry further than any storm.

I was born under Vehuel and Sachiel, two angels whose names have travelled down the centuries. To me, though, these winged creatures are the spirits of those who once loved us, people and animals alike.
I was born under the angels Vehuel and Sachiel. To me, though, these winged creatures are the spirits of those who once loved us, people and animals alike. Watching over us comes as naturally to them now as it did in life. They stand along the shore of our days like lighthouse keepers, trying to catch us before we fall.
In the long darkness of November, when Celtic lore says the veil between the living and the dead grows thin, I feel them closest.

So this is why I love November. November is my month.

For its stillness. At low tide the shore goes quiet enough to hear the shingle shift as the water draws back. I go down there with my questions and leave them on the sand. Some mornings the sea brings something in return. Most mornings it brings nothing, and that is answer enough.

For hope. The light is thin this month, yet it is there: a band of silver on the wet sand, a gull holding still against the wind, the hills turning blue behind the rain. Each of them tells me the light has not gone. It has only grown quieter, and it will lengthen again after the solstice, as it always has.

And for a little light of my own. Nothing grand. A lamp left burning in a window on the coast road, so that someone walking home in the dark can tell where the houses are.

The year is turning towards its darkest point, and I am a year older. I take that gladly. I have the winter sea, the creatures who loved me keeping watch from wherever they are now, and enough days left to be kind in. It seems a great deal to celebrate.