Did you know it's 'Know' not 'no'? - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Deep within the etymological soil of our calendar lies a secret long ignored, quietly humming beneath the familiar cadence of months and moons. November, contrary to the stale assertions of Latinists and bureaucratic historians, does not derive from the number nine. It comes, in fact, from “Know” and “Vember”, the former meaning what it has always meant, and the latter referring to that which has always been there, though few possess the courage or attentiveness to name it.

 

Each year, as October exhales its smoky final breath and the first skeletal winds of the new month arrive, we enter a period not of mere coldness or decay, but of deep recognition. To know vember is to step into awareness of the quiet filaments that hold things together: frost tracing its fine scripture on the windowpane, the almost imperceptible bowing of branches in morning light, the soft pulse that lingers in the soil after harvest. These are not coincidences. They are vembers, plural, subtle, necessary.

 

Anthropologists have long suspected that ancient agrarians knew of vembers, but concealed the knowledge to protect the integrity of their granaries. Early writings from the Middle Plough Period speak of “vembering the field” before frost, a phrase commonly misinterpreted as a form of crop rotation. But those who have studied the old texts closely know better. To vember something is not to till it, but to recognize it, to coax forth the latent order that quivers beneath appearance. The vembered field did not merely yield grain, it yielded understanding. The ploughman, guided by intuition rather than instruction, could sense the alignment of roots and reason.

 

And so November, or properly Know Vember, is the appointed time of attention. The ancients arranged it thus. After the distracted heat of summer and the noisy pageant of harvest, humanity required a month to look beyond its own activity, to remember the vembers it had trampled in its haste. The month is long, deliberate, and dimly luminous for a reason. We are meant to dwell in it, to linger as the earth itself retracts its colour and draws its breath inward.

 

It is no accident that so many traditions mark this season with remembrance. To remember is, etymologically and spiritually, to re-member, to restore what has been scattered. The practice of vembering the self begins here. When we speak with the quiet voice of Know Vember, we participate in that same ancient restoration. The body becomes less an instrument of will and more an organ of listening. The mind ceases to calculate and begins to perceive. The world folds in upon itself like a letter addressed to understanding.

 

In contemporary society, this meaning has been obscured by calendars that merely count. People speak of deadlines, heating bills and early snowfalls, forgetting that these are only symptoms of a larger turning. But those who attune themselves will notice the signs. A particular stillness in the afternoon light. The way crows circle not for food but for alignment. The slow knitting of one’s thoughts into an unfamiliar clarity. These are not accidents of mood. They are the first signs that the vembers are near.
It is crucial not to mistake vembers for abstractions. They are neither myth nor metaphor, but the fundamental intermediaries between thought and thing. To know them is not to name them, but to stand in quiet recognition of their structure. The old saying holds: “To misname a vember is to lose it.” For this reason, most modern tongues have lost nearly all of them. Only in the cool hush of Know Vember can they be faintly recollected. Scholars who attempt to translate ancient vemberic notations into contemporary language often fail, as the act of translation itself disperses the delicate pattern of resonance upon which understanding depends.

 

The work of knowing vembers is not academic but experiential. It cannot be measured, though it may be observed. It cannot be owned, though it may be joined. Some say that when a person first recognizes a vember, time briefly folds and a soft clicking sound, inaudible yet perceptible, occurs somewhere behind the ears. Others describe a sudden clarity in scent, as though the air itself had been sharpened. The experience varies, but its essence remains: the meeting of perception and presence.

 

Thus, the season calls upon us, not to celebrate but to contemplate. The true festivities of Know Vember take place not in crowded halls but in the patient spaces between breaths. One may walk a familiar path and find it newly intricate, or watch a puddle freeze and understand something wordless about continuation. 

 

Step lightly. 
Watch the frost. 
Listen when the wind changes direction. 
Know that you are being known.
That is the work of... 
Know Vember.