We all do it, I suppose, this time of year. But somehow the end of 2022 seemed to me to be weary, lacklustre and still quite scary. I don’t quite feel we are AT LAST escaping the grip of the villains. Only time will tell.
Meantime, we have had a brief season of family, community, love and togetherness. For British people (I am naturalized American, remember) there was the awful void of the old Queen’s death, which seemed to bring families together. The new King, Charles III, was a person Vivien and I loved, as we watched him show wisdom, care, community, environmental awareness and respect for tradition.
He came to the throne, inevitably, at a horrific moment: his mother had just passed and it tore the heart of many of us. He was visibly emotional as he stepped up to the plate. Understand, I’m not a worshipper of aristocracy—they have to earn my respect.
But with the Queen’s passing was the passing of an actual age; my age! She represented the world as I experienced it. Starting days after WW 2 ended, when I was born, we moved into an era of amazing excitement and creativity, marked by advances in science and medicine; the arts; the Beatles; innovations, such as television and computers; fashion clothes; home furnishings and world travel on a scale I could not have imagined, being brought up in moderate poverty in rural England.
I was the first “Mumby” ever to go to university; my sister only the second and my granddaughter Emily only the third! My family were golden-hearted, rough and ready, but certainly not academic material! Haha!
Come to that, I was the first “Mumby” to own a motor car! Nowadays, it’s like a suit of clothes—you might need two! My grandfather Harry Scott owned a horse and cart… that made him nouveau riche!
Anyway, this isn’t about me being sentimental. It’s about my wonderful friends all over the world. I get so many amazing messages of inspiration in my emails, some days my work routine comes to a halt while I sit and read them!
Recently, as you know, I asked subscribers to hit the REPLY button now and again. It was a genuine request, designed to keep us together as a community, against the bullying rigidity of Google and Hotmail. They’d have me down as a spammer, just because I don’t want to lose my old friends and keep writing to you all.
But the unexpected and wonderful consequence is that I have received so many wonderful support messages. Only today, I received such a heart-warming greeting. I can’t give you her name because I haven’t asked permission to quote her at such short notice.
Dear Beloved Being named Keith Scott-Mumby. I am so grateful for your Presence and all that you bring in all the years I have been paying attention to you, reading some of your books and following your own process, along with my own, as we all create our own inner sanctuary from which we create. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You!!
Forever Blessings, XXXX
Google wants to stamp on all that, would you believe. They are sick but beyond my medicine!
What will 2023 be like then? I hope no more threats of unscientific social-distancing and mask wearing. Instead I would wish that all good people everywhere were left to their own life course. That would mean no more wars and no more crushing laws.
It would mean the family is re-born and takes precedence over those who would control us “for the common good.” I read the other day that there is truly a surge in multigenerational families. It was posted as a new trend but of course it’s as old as the hills (older).
What could be better than mother, father, kids, grandma and grandad gathered together at a table (maybe a baby in the pod) and sharing the love? You hear a lot of talk about “The Mediterranean Diet” but the researchers miss the whole point, which is that Mediterranean peoples usually congregate in family groups.
It’s not about the calorie count, the saturated fats, or the carbs. It’s about love!
Truth is about human beings, that we need each other. Isolation is the cruelest thing. Loneliness is now recognized as a disease condition, every bit as dangerous as smoking and obesity. This is not to say a bit of solitude now and again will hurt you; probably the opposite. But solitude is yours by choice; loneliness is not.
So for the New Year, I wish you all the love you could dream of. If you feel lonely, I do truly wish you out of the trap.
My Third Age Wisdom community (ThirdAgeWisdom.com), which will get started in the New Year, is about togetherness and connectivity. We older folk are a special group—we’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt and, in general, we are wiser and less emotionally tormented than the youngsters.
They still think something will happen that will BRING them happiness. We know that it’s no use waiting around for happiness to come to you. Many hurts have probably convinced you that life just doesn’t work like that, eh?
We create our own happiness. Really, we manufacture it from nothing! Just being here in the first place is one of the happiest slices of serendipity that I can ever imagine.
Let’s celebrate it. Celebrate the Coming Age. Strive for a better future and we won’t wait for somebody to do it for us, we’ll create it ourselves.
Treat yourself well from now on—you are PRECIOUS. Chill a little and try to not let the traffic, the TV madness and the intrusive cellphone tear up your equinamity!
Walk more, leave the cellphone behind, and go slowly! Have you heard of shinrin-yoku (Japanese); it means forest bathing. The whole point is that you are not going anywhere. It’s not forest walking; it’s forest bathing. Have a dodder if you are not very fit!
If you haven’t got a forest nearby (we have not, in the desert, here in Las Vegas), go find some plants. And even having a plant on your desk will bring you some of the benefits.
Norwegian research shows that having a plant at or within view of an office workstation significantly decreases the risk of sick leave. A 2010 study from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, reported that levels of anger, anxiety, depressive thoughts, and fatigue all reduced over a three-month period, and not just by a little bit—these parameters were reduced by about 40 percent, while reported stress was down by 50 percent. On the other hand, those without the stress buffer of a visible plant indicated that stress levels rose over 20 percent during the study.
Humour
Life without laughter isn’t really living. Laughter is light and fresh and buzzing with the energies of life! That’s probably why it is so healing. Check out the story of Norman Cousins, who literally laughed his way back from being crippled (The Anatomy of An Illness).
It’s a story which has been repeated many times. You can laugh your way out of any trouble, any mess, any adversity.
Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh anyway. Laugh out loud! Wow the world with the sounds of delight and freedom. There is nothing upsets the Meanies quite so much as someone having fun! And don’t let the religious prudes and prigs convince you it’s trivial and therefore wicked. God gave us laughter: use it!
Haha!
Happy New Year,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
