Monthly Archives: August 2014

‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’t’s’ of Radiating Wisdom

by contoveros
 Today’s meditation showed us that we all have a profound and innate wisdom. How have you experienced this in your life? Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you? — Deepak & Oprah 21-day Meditation Experience.

Wisdom Flourishes from Deep Within

As I struggle to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, let me focus instead on what Deepak had quoted William Blake as saying in reference to wisdom. Wisdom is “organized innocence.” What a concept! In order to have or to cultivate wisdom, I know that I must be in awe of something; I must see that thing with wonder, with the eyes of an innocent child.

It is only when I perceive it this way, that is, when I use what Zen Buddhists call my “beginner’s mind,” that I see the true writing on a wall I offered up for its clean slate to be imprinted upon.

Wisdom is not something confined to those growing old. Nor is it only for the professor-types in ivory towers, although we can revere what many tell us because of the learning they achieved and can pass on to us. No, wisdom is something that – I believe – we’re born with . . . We have it inside of us, and one of the few ways that we can tap into it is through meditation.

Very Wise to Experience Things from Within

In other words, I don’t have to have lots of experiences to be wise. I need only to experience things from within and be able to see things from the child’s point of view. Then I can feel the richness in witnessing.

Now, what was that question that I just dodged?

     “Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you?”

I told a young woman, Rita, that our relationship would have to come to an end, and that we had to enjoy it while we were together. We were both married at the time. I’m not proud of it, but we had an affair. I was twenty-three and she was twenty-one or twenty-two. We came together as troubles had developed in both of our relationships at our separate homes.

      We had fun and we grew, sharing ourselves in a way that we couldn’t with our spouses at that time. We both got divorces. She is much quicker than me. That angered her. I guess she felt that I should have joined her upon her break-up with her husband. I did not, for I was Catholic, and I knew instinctively that I would not.

That’s what I meant when I said our relationship was impermanent and that it would not last. Nothing does.

———–

     I guess another time that this occurred was more recently, but it feels like several lifetimes ago. I had predicted to a young woman whom I had fallen in love with that we would only be together for six months. I actually told her in June that we could learn from each other and then finish what we needed to do by December.

No Good in Trying to Cling to a Relationship

That’s exactly what happened too! But this time, I was the one who didn’t want to pay attention to my own advice. I wanted permanence. I wanted to cling to the relationship, to hold onto something that had already ended, but I couldn’t and didn’t want to see that my earlier premonition was correct.

In each case, I was prophetic with the wisdom.

Achieving wisdom and following it, however, are two things I have learned that don’t necessarily come together all the time . . .

The Enlightenment of a Dharma Listener

by contoveros

I’m down to just two more days now . . . Two more days in which to become enlightened through the 21-Day Meditation Experience of Deepak & Oprah. Today is the 20th Day. Tomorrow, I’m afraid, it will end for me and you.

     No matter what happens, though, I’ve been exposed to what Buddhists call the Dharma. That is, the “teachings” of meditation by Siddhartha Gotama, the person most of us call the “Buddha.”

     It reminds me of a story I heard recently.   

It’s about a Frog.

     The frog lived in the time of Siddhartha, at a time when the young man from Nepal had become an enlightened one. The Buddha was teaching a small group of followers at the banks of the Gaggara lotus pond when the frog heard his voice and wanted to get closer. The Buddha sat cross-legged in what would one day be called the “lotus position.”

     The little critter moved from one spot in the pond to another and could just about see the teacher. Still, the frog wanted to get even closer so that he could hear about the cessation of suffering, which we have come to know as the “Third Noble Truth.”

Frog Listens to the Words of a Holy Man

     When the frog hopped out and landed on dry land, where he sat, legs behind his squishy little frog-like body, and took in the words being freely offered by this wonderful holy man.

     A farmer from a nearby house then approached. He was a cowherd who also wanted to hear what was being said in his native country of India. But as he approached the speaker, the cowherd focused not on the ground where he was walking, but on Siddhartha.

Anyone listening to Dharma today can become enlightened!

     —-

Leaning on his crook, he crushed the poor frog that lay beneath him. As a result, the frog died and was reborn in the realm of the:

“Thirty-Three with a twelve-yojana gold Mansion [vimana] and [was] attended by nymphs,”

according to reports published in a Dharma book.

—-

That’s not the end of the story, however.

—-

     As the frog became a god, he reflected on what deeds he had done to deserve all of this.  That’s what he realized that it was simply his attraction to the Buddha’s voice, his brief exposure to the Dharma that did it!

     Then the frog came down to the Buddha and honored him.

The Buddha then spoke:

 Who, bright with psychic potency and entourage, with surpassing beauty making all the quarters effulgent, is honoring my feet?”

     Then the frog (now a God!) explained:

 I was formerly a frog, a water-denizen.  But while I was listening to your Dhamma a (young) cowherd killed me.

For a moment’s serenity of mind, behold my psychic potency and entourage and behold my majesty, beauty, and behold my brightness.

Those who for long have heard your Dharma, Gautama, it is they who have attained the unmoving place where they who go grieve not.

Enlightened Frog becomes a Noble Hearer

     After this, the frog became stream-entered, that is, he became a Noble Hearer.   After honoring the Buddha, the god (our friend the frog) returned to his celestial world.

(For more on the frog, please go to the site where I gleaned much of this Dharma story known as the Zennist Typepad. 

Living with passion; name your 5 favorites

by contoveros
What are your passions in life? List five areas and describe what quality of energy and joy that passion brings out in you. – –Deepak and Oprah Meditation Experience

   Writing is my number one passion.

“Loving people” is another, if you can include such an activity as a passion.

     Getting people to laugh and feel good about themselves is a third passion that I enjoy.

     Seeking and trying to understand another form of spirituality is a fourth passion, one I’d love to do any hour of the day or night. I guess you could say I’m becoming more passionate about combining all of them into one big passion, one I’d apply to life as long as I could.  Continue reading →

Writing heats up; twice blesses me & you

by contoveros

     I am hot. I feel like I have a fever . . . A fever that pulses through me for the past several weeks. It seems this fever entered my bloodstream just about the same time as I started doing twice-a-day meditations with Deepak and Oprah for a 21-day Meditation Experience. Writing in the journal has added to the mix.

     Wherever possible, I have gone into my treasure bank of some 600 articles I wrote to offer my take on a question or two that I had handled before. It’s amazing how meditation has been a constant in my life and remains the only real permanent fixture we can count on.

     Buddhists believe that all things are constantly in flux and are changing day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. There is “impermanence” in this world, the Buddha said. When I can finally realize that deep in my core, then I’ll be enlightened.

Meditation Creates State of Love and Compassion

     I believe the heat or warm feeling washing over me is pure energy. Meditation has energized my battery after forcing it to rest in a calm state where it could fill up with love and compassion. This energy gets increased once I start to touch on it and offer it to others, be it through a thought or a deed.

     So, I became twice blessed with it. Once when the source dictates what it wants to pass through me – it’s a frail and overheated conduit – and secondly, when I write and then edit the offerings for public consumption. I get more out of giving more.

  • What is it that Shakespeare said about the lawyer named Shylock?
  • The quality of mercy is twice blessed? One is for the one receiving the mercy, but it is just as powerful for the one granting that mercy.
  • Yeah, that’s the ticket. Writing will do that to you . . . Writing first and then remembering to bow down to the Source that controls and offers up the writing to you . . .

Journey Propels Me to the Lower World

by contoveros

   Our Shamanic Journey to the Lower World

I couldn’t wait for the instructor to finish her directions for my latest journey to the lower world. As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt a presence come into my awareness. I could hear my Reiki teacher, Angie, talking in her special “guide’s” voice, and I knew that my good friend Melanie was as attentive as I was the first time this Shamanic guide talked me into seeing a new reality, a new world.

     Melanie sat on the couch to my right. We had already shared our brief journeys into the Middle World, the one that exists now on this plane. We were joyous to discover we both pictured the bright, bold red cardinal as our favorite animal. On top of that, however, red foxes had approached us as spirit guides.

     Melanie, who has had to struggle as a caregiver for her father, who passed away slightly more than a year ago, had only recently placed her grandmother into a nursing home when Melanie had struck bottom and sought help to save herself from drowning. Several of her father’s dearest friends interceded and rescued Melanie, ushering the grandmother into an emergency entrance of a nearby assisted living facility.

  • (As some of you might be aware, I placed my spouse in a nursing home after struggling with “care-giver burnout.” in January of 2013, following a lengthy trial that started Sept. 15, 2006.)

    Foxes Act as Guides in the Lower World

Melanie’s fox led her to a wolf, and took off, leaving the poor child without saying goodbye. On awakening from this journey, she felt grief occupying her Throat Chakra and parts of her psyche.

     My fox was a “wanderer,” helping a vixen here, and a horse there, while never staying in one place too long before seeking some new adventure, some new mystical experience wherever his heart would take him.

     But my visit to the Lower World was something I never expected, and it goes to show you that when you have “no expectations,” someone’s will that you’re placing your own will in does not disappoint you.

  • (This is an excerpt from a forthcoming Contoveros book on Reiki to be published next year!)

   Mystical Creature Appears Subconsciously

I didn’t mean to begin my journey as soon as my eyes closed. But a creature from a previous dream entered my consciousness. I had dreamed of this wonderful being some three years ago when writing down all of my dreams religiously over a 6-week period. In the dream, a figure much like the mythical “Puff the Magic Dragon” had visited me. But he appeared as no fictional character, but one our earth had seen hundreds of thousands of years ago.

     My totem for this latest journey was none other than “Little Foot,” the long-neck dinosaur, also known as a Brontosaurus as well as an Apatosaurus. He took me swimming and diving in the ocean as I held onto him and rode him bareback. In my dream, I clung to this, the largest of all the prehistoric animals, as he made his way into the water and then out of it, somehow climbing into the air as if he could fly.

    Dinosaur in Dream Becomes Best Friend

We became airborne for just a short time before submerging again and splashing in the refreshing water, giggling and laughing as the best of friends, man and beast, kids at heart.

     There was no time for surface contacts, however. As Angie continued to softly speak to me and Mel, I plunged into the water. It was a clear, fresh, and bubbling area of water. My dinosaur friend was fully in charge. I knew not where we were headed, but felt I was on another adventure.      

     Down and down, we went, my eyes wide open and hair wildly drifting from one side to the other as we would twist and turn around the sea structures and sea animals, none of which lingered for long in our sights. We passed coral and rock formations and hundreds of different colored fish, all seemingly aware of our visit to their part of the world.

Domed City Made of Gold Beckons to Me

     Too soon, we slowed as the dinosaur pulled up straight, ending what seemed like hours of descent. There, just below me, was a domed city. It was all in gold. It sparkled and shone in the air that was trapped inside this huge globe-like, clear structure. Our view was unobstructed. I saw streets and pavements, as well as houses of various sizes, shapes, and widths.

     But there were no people. The city seemed to have been there for the longest of times, existing long before civilization as we know it came into being. It had an air of wisdom and knowledge about it, as if the basic rocks, wood, stones, and trees were alive and full of answers to anyone who could pose the right question to them.

     I wanted to enter. So did my traveling companion. But no sooner had we come into the presence of this magnificent city, we knew it was time to go.

     I don’t remember much after this. A walrus with long tusks came into our vision. “Goo-goo-achoo,” I felt like singing to him in the language of the Beatles. He, too, was wise. Maybe he was the doorman or watchman at the entrance to the “globed city” beneath the sea.

Walrus Guides Me to a Pool of Sharks

     He guided us away from the city and upwards toward the waterway above. Soon, he too left us on our own. But not for long, we were then joined by a group of professional sharks. I felt they were more professional than I thought it. They were of the lawyer class of sharks. Very efficient, very logical, and very uncaring for anything but their targeted prey.

     I enjoyed their company and just as we were about to swap war stories of courtroom intrigue and shenanigans, I heard drumming in the far distance. The thumping drew my attention, and it pulled me away from the sharks, the water, and my good friend the dinosaur. I re-entered the land of “Now. “Upon describing my vision, Angie said I had journeyed to the Lost City of Atlantis, the magical land spoken of by Plato, the Greek philosopher who always dealt with facts, never fiction.

     Was he calling me to the city? Were my father’s ancestors somehow interceding with the powers of Poseidon to gain me entrance to this wonder or wonders? Who knows. Maybe more will follow in my next Shamanic Journey.

The Gospel according to Micha’el the lesser

by contoveros

Continue reading →

Hoping for a lofty goal, I write a lot & often

by contoveros
(Question 2 on Hope)
You may also have experienced this kind of hope, (See https://contoveros.wordpress.com/?p=12505&preview=true) but not thought of it in those terms. Think of a time when you felt sure you were going to attain a lofty goal, even though the path to the goal was not apparent. That is the hope that comes from your being. Describe this feeling of certainty in your journal. – Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Feeling Hope) I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.

Hope to One Day Write a Book

I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.

     I needed and wanted to write a book.

    Not just any book, but one where I was the hero. Well, hero may not be the right word. In the book, I was to be the center of attention, while everything I’d write about would involve me and things that I had some sort of contact with. I used the model of the Bible as a guide.

     I figured that the greatest book that there ever was should be the map and framework for my book. I’d be just like Christ, but not face crucifixion or circumcision. There was a driving force behind this idea. The idea stayed with me from the moment I was nineteen years old until I finished working for a living and found the leisure time to write about what I had discovered over the years.

Blogging Leads to Eventual Plans for a Book

     I didn’t know that I would write a book when I started dabbling with a Blog. I started writing on WordPress the same month that Uncle Dom had died in 2009, and I guess I haven’t stopped since then. The blog became my way of expressing what I was seeing around me and what was happening to influence me. I learned that most of what I was learning was something I already knew, but had forgotten.

     I think that much of spiritual knowledge is like that. We don’t get our “smarts” from someone or some book out there. We get it from inside, where true wisdom, love, and hope reside. It takes some of us a lifetime, however, to realize that. All we needed to do was to become as silent as Dominick, smile, and hope to visit that wise child inside who has never left us. The child becomes the guide and offers us the inspiration to set goals and to eventually achieve them.

Another Step In Writing Achieved!

     You’re reading this right now, and that goes to show you that I achieved another step toward my goal. You can do it once you identify your goal and stick to it as if your life depended on it.

     Your spiritual life will depend on it for you to follow through for your salvation.

(For the first question on hope, please see previous post with a click below left.)

Editor’s note. Michael J Contos, writing as ” Contoveros” authored two books by this date, one a novel about Francis of Assisi, his favorite community organizer, and a second one on his spiritual journey to Ithaca, NY.

Hope fills your presence and your future

by contoveros
We introduced a new understanding of hope today. We want to build a sense of hope that is a force of change that comes from a feeling of certainty and well-being within, rather than an anxious kind of hope that vaguely wishes for things to turn out well. Write about an experience you may have had with this stronger kind of hope. – Deepak Chopra (Day 6 — Feeling Hope) 
 (For more on meditation, see Chopra Center Meditation. Experience)

Hope can Help Guide Through All of Life

I don’t think you can have a future or any type of “end product” without hope. I see hope more as a process, a living force that flows from day-to-day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. We hope for something that will come into existence in some future time. Yet the feeling we get through the act of hope occurs in the present.

It’s like living. No, it is living, which is living in the present moment while expending energy in a real certainty that there will be answers for what we hope for tomorrow. For instance, I hope to publish a book. Actually, I have five books in which I hope to publish over the next several months. That’s ten hopeful wishes, so to speak. I am in the process of self-publishing, and I hope to obtain an end product sometime later this year.

Hope that Writing will Inspire Others

My hope is that the books will be well-received and, more importantly, that someone reads them. I hope that they will inspire others and reveal truths that I’ve learned through a mystical journey I started some six years ago. That’s when I retired from “regular” work, and I found my true passion in writing. I like to say that I traded in a legal career to return to a writing one, this time, not as a newspaper reporter, but a reporter on and about life!

Since September 2009, I had hoped that I could offer as much compassion and love as the monsignor did at my Uncle Dominick‘s funeral. Uncle Dom was the last surviving blood relative from either of my parents’ sides. He was the baby of the family and had babysat me when I was sent to my grandmother’s house to avoid any harm. My mother, Dom’s half-sister, had suffered from postpartum depression, and I was shipped off to Mays Landing, NJ, from Philadelphia, PA, to prevent any danger to me and to provide the much-needed help for my frail and sickly mother.

Grandmother Provides Unconditional Love

     Did someone see some hope in me? I like to think that Grandma Hagel did. Whenever someone asked me if I knew who provided me with unconditional love, I automatically think of her. Yet, I remember very little about her. I guess there was (is) a feeling about the times I had contact with her that lends itself to such an impression.

     Uncle Dom was the quiet type. He served in the navy during World War II and “inherited” Grandma’s house after he got married and began raising his own children. He married one of the toughest women I have ever encountered, Aunt Frances. She was the bossy type who always seems to control every situation. And if she couldn’t control it, she found a way to influence it by getting to the guy or girl in charge!

Spiritual Path Provides Hope for the Future

I got hope for my spiritual path when the cleric at Uncle Dom’s funeral butchered Aunt Frances’ name. No one messed with Aunt Frances, and I took it as a sign for a drastic change in my life. I figured that I was as spiritual as that priest, and that I could prove it.

Of course, I had meditated for more than a year, having learned mindfulness meditation in a Veterans Administration clinic and at a weekly meditation session with a Zen teacher. Hope infused in me after I prayed for Uncle Dom, meditated, and rose to the standing position with the others in the church. We stood to exit the pew where we had been either seated or were kneeling. It was time to receive Holy Communion.

— Hope for us Fallen Catholics —

Communion is something I can’t receive anymore. You see, I got married “outside” the church, and I would have to get a dispensation from the pope or get remarried “in” the church to take on that sacrament. It is one of the worst sins the Catholic Church has imposed on its faithful, and I’m sure it has driven out — and is still keeping out — many Catholics who are good people. These are people like me who had simply met other good folks of different religious backgrounds and agreed to accept the spouse’s choice of where to get married.

I got married in a Presbyterian Church by a Methodist minister named Michele Wright Bartlow, the sister of my soon-to-be wife, the former Wendy Wright.

I hope that someday a pope like Pope Francis will grant a blanket absolution for those of us who chose to say our marriage vows somewhere other than in a Catholic church. I’d “go back” to the church if he waved a magic wand and said all was forgiven. I would be able to receive communion again and not have to pretend like I did during the funeral for Uncle Dom.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It Works Spiritually

  •      What I did was to fake it. I stood up in church, made my way to the center aisle, but instead of walking forward, I went backward.  Persons with an untrained eye who saw me walking backward believed I was without a mortal sin. In the Catholic faith, you can’t receive Holy Communion with a mortal sin “on your soul.” You can if you only have venial sins, according to church doctrine which I believe has not changed since I was an altar boy in the 1960s…

————–

So, I marched backward and then made my way around the church, checking out some of the statues on display at various sections of the House of God. My hope was that no one would take offense, and from what I noticed, no one did. No one has ever commented about it, and I guess my hope helped to create a happy ending of sorts.

I became more spiritual and have not really looked back except to reflect on how far along this path a sinner like me has been able to travel. See, there is hope for everybody if they seek it out. It freed me up to write, and I haven’t stopped since that fateful day.

     Stay tuned for more hope in tomorrow’s post. That’s when I’ll try to “wright a wrong“, so to speak. Or just click the post at right below.)

Explosion shatters Peace but calm prevails

by contoveros

Question 2 of 4 on ” Feeling Peaceful“

Thinking of this same peaceful experience, imagine that feeling of calm becoming deeper and stronger within your soul to the point where nothing happening in the environment could shake it. Describe what that kind of peace would feel like physically, mentally and emotionally. How could this type of peace change your life? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)

Well, it would be hard to imagine my Peace in Vietnam  being any better than what it was that day. It could have very easily been shattered by gunfire. Worse yet, the peace could have been destroyed with my heart and my soul wounded by something called friendly fire.

That’s what happened during another incident while leading men on a search and destroy mission in what we called the “bush.” I had called in mortar fire on a suspected enemy location, but one of the rounds fell on my squad. Five soldiers were injured and I thank God that none were killed.

    Flashbacks of War Create PTSD for this Soldier

But, being the man in charge, the lieutenant, I got blamed, and I carried that shame and sense of utter failure with me all of my life. Peace evaded me throughout my adulthood as I battled what was labeled Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an anxiety illness that causes flashbacks of the war when certain stressful situations trigger a physical, mental, and emotional recall of the trauma.

peace 2.jpeg

Express peace in any shape or form until it becomes a worldwide phenomenon

————–

     I found peace, however, while attending a five-day meditation retreat, and I was able to journal about my war experience. I felt safe and secure among like-minded meditators. I figured I could cry like a baby while with them, and they would still accept me despite my tears.

Writing about Worst Day of Your Life Hurts

I did cry, and it was refreshing. I also wrote about that day, the worst day of my life. And it brought peace to my heart. I saw how I had functioned as a calm and cool soldier under extreme conditions, never losing my composure when chaos erupted all around me. I became detached from the scene, the carnage, and I did my job to the best of my ability and then some, if I do say so myself.

Inside, I felt myself shatter like a pane of glass struck by a wrecking ball aimed right at me.

It was the first time I was able to do this. Look at that dreadful day without recoiling and feeling the guilt, the anxiety, the grief, and, worse yet, the shame. And I found that writing was indeed therapeutic. It is a method of meditation that I hope to continue over these 21 days of meditating through the Chopra Center for Meditation, where I plan to take it “to infinity . . . and beyond.”

Peace is not found out there somewhere. It exists within and can be found by focusing on that place inside that offers comfort, security, and forgiveness.

————–

— Michael J Contos, former US Army lieutenant, in response to question at the 21-day Meditation Experience provided by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. For more, see Chopra Center Meditation Experience)

Getting a Good Last Laugh is so Laudable

by contoveros

Despite always having a smile on my lips and a laugh at my tongue, I found it hard to think of anything to write about for the latest meditation round for Oprah and Deepak. That is, until I picked up my son at work this evening and we joked and laughed until I almost did you know what in my pants. It hurt so much that I started crying, that’s how good it was and how great it felt to just let it all come out in front of one of his 22-year-old buddies and our 25-year-old female traveling companion.

Continue reading →

Peace Found Deep Inside the Vietnam War

by contoveros
(Part 1 of 2)
Recall a time when you felt calm and peaceful, even though the circumstances were not peaceful. Write down a description of that event, and describe how you were able to be calm in that situation. What was the source of this peacefulness if it didn’t come from outside? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)

     I had led my platoon in Vietnam for several months. We had encountered several firefights, but no one was killed or injured, thank God. But you never knew what the next day would bring, and so we were on edge, on the ready, so to speak, for anything that might have endangered us.

     And then one day, I lead one of my two squads into an area where we came across a humongous crater that had been carved in the earth. I don’t know what kind of bomb had created such a massive hole. It looked as if it had been done several years before the ten or twelve guys I was leading had approached it and, circling it, decided to make our overnight “camp” there.

Calm and Relaxing Vibrations Greet Soldier

     It was broad daylight, however, when we got to it, and there were still several hours of light left. I’ll tell you I have never felt so much peace as I did when settling in at that moment. I don’t know what it was that gave off such calm and relaxing vibrations. Perhaps there had been a monastery or some sort of temple there at one time.

     Perhaps spirits from those prayers offered up to whatever gods existed at their time were still lingering in the vicinity.

peace.jpg

Peace of God found in the middle of the Vietnam War for some lucky Grunts

———————–

I felt secure and comfortable. I felt I could rest and not worry about any type of attack, even though we didn’t let down our watch through the evening and overnight. It just seemed as if God had gathered us in his arms and was protecting us.

I hadn’t felt the Presence of God since I was twelve years old. I didn’t recognize it as a “presence” until recently, when I reflected on the more peaceful times in my life and determined that, strangely enough, it was right smack in the middle of a war.

Peace Provided for all of God’s Creatures

The peace came from within but also from the birds and critters that had returned to what must have been a burned-out shell shortly after the massive explosion. Bushes and small trees had started to grow along the sides of the crater. There weren’t that many flowers, but the foliage was pleasant to look at and comforting to believe it could conceal us from outside forces. Maybe it did.

And maybe that is what peace is all about, being able to go within, protected from outside forces.

— Michael J Contos, former US Army lieutenant, responding to meditation question posed.

(For part 2, please see: https://contoveros.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/explosion-shatters-peace-but-calm-prevails/)

(For more on meditation see Chopra Center Meditation Experience)

The Willie Dream — he’ll always return

by contoveros

     I had a dream with a wonderful happy ending just a few minutes ago. It woke me, and I made a cup of coffee, brushed my teeth, and began writing while the memory was still fresh on my mind.

     I dreamed about my dog named Willie.

     I was walking with him, as well as my old office mate from the Defender Association of Philadelphia, when Willie broke away from us, crossed the street, and joined in a chase of something that a pack of dogs was following at the Philadelphia Art Museum. You know, the one that Rocky Balboa ran up the steps before raising both arms in victory motion in the movie.

     I called to him several times, but he was too busy enjoying the chase as I saw him run up one hill and down the other. Boy, was he having fun.

    Whistling does Little to Curb a Dog’s Fun

But I knew there could be trouble with any traffic should he decide to cross the street or follow the dogs should they chase after the prey they were seeking. I whistled my special whistle but got nada in return.

     I couldn’t wait. My office mate and I had to catch a bus. I guess we were going to work near City Hall in downtown Philadelphia.

     In any case, we had gotten on a bus, and I immediately felt pangs of guilt. I also saw Willie running with the dogs in the distance, and I waited until I got the bus driver’s attention and asked him to please stop.

     My office mate chided me.

     “You never had a dog,” I said to her. “You never experienced true love,” I added, not really knowing what I meant by that, but feeling it kind of meant something like “unconditional love,” the type I got from my dog, Willie.

Second Dream of Wilie Galloping Around

     This was not the first dream I had of him. He appears regularly in my dreams. He’s never on a leash and always seems to be having a great time.

     This time, however, I felt I couldn’t rest without “getting him back.”

     I got off the bus and somehow got transported to the back of an open dump truck that belonged to one of my brothers, Johnny. There were a few items in the bed of the truck, including a rifle, which I grabbed before leaving on my quest to get Willie.

     I had no idea where the bus driver had left me off at. It was somewhere in Philly, but I wasn’t familiar with South Philadelphia and none of the places I saw seemed as if they belonged. Hey, this was a dream, after all!

Blog Post here will Appear in Book Form

(Note: This is an excerpt from a book entitled; “Contoveros Sings the Brewerytown Blues” scheduled for publication in late 2015 or early 2016)

     I began walking a straight line in the direction back to the art museum. In order to do that, I had to walk into and through houses and offices. I’d say hello and pretend that I worked at the places I breezed through. I had taken no notice of the rifle I was carrying, and neither had anyone else.

     Too soon, I found my way blocked. I then climbed a roof hoping to get over one of the buildings, but couldn’t get any further, and I was forced to retreat to where I had just climbed from. All I kept thinking was what someone would say to the police upon seeing my little Greek butt.

     “Man on a roof with a rifle.”

Search for Willie Continues Indoors

     The next thing I knew, I was inside a factory laboratory. Two men were walking in the same direction away from me, and I called out to them. The one fellow turned out to be a really Good Samaritan, agreeing to take me to his house and help me on my search for Willie.

     Oh, by the way. Before I had left the bus, the bus driver pulled out a sheet and began writing answers to questions he posed to me about Willie, should someone with SEPTA, the regional transit company. I told him the dog would eat about anything and, yes, he was partial to biscuits!

     My newly found friend and I were joined by a few others in his house, and we made our way out. We had to pass through one of two gates to get to the street. One gate had been guarded by a fellow who was looking the other way when we departed, safely reaching the street and the avenue outside the compound.

Small Critter makes a Beeline Towards Me

     Once there, we had been walking up the street for a few minutes when one of the members of our group started to shout and point. I had no idea what he was referring to until I noticed a small black and white critter come racing in our direction, making a beeline right towards me.

     Willie had found me. He was never lost. Neither was I.

     And of course, we lived happily ever after!

————–

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.“
— Josh Billings

Transcending My State of Meditation

by contoveros

     Transcend to a Higher Level of Consiousness

I took off from Planet Earth this morning. It all happened when Deepak Chopra pushed a button inside of me, using the words “transcend” and “Higher Levels of Consciousness.” Continue reading →