Author Archives: contoveros
Abide in the moment you just completed
I am Complete.
I am Finished.
I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading
Pinned for a Life above & beyond the call
OCS Opens me to a Life-Long Journey of Achievements
While Neil Armstrong was taking a giant leap for all mankind, I had taken a small step toward adulthood one month after the moon landing, and I had no one to thank for it except my brother, who encouraged me to aim for the stars in becoming an Officer and a Gentleman in the Army of the United States of America.
Tattoo Tests Tale to Tell the Truth Today
A tattoo can readily identify someone, and sometimes one can become the key to the guilt or innocence of a man facing the wrath of a woman he may have wronged.
Graduation Highlights Father-Son Ties
One of the most wonderful moments of my life occurred without my knowing it. Had I the presence of mind to be more present for things that mattered, I might not have missed it. Recalling what this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence must have been like, however, is the second-best way I know of memorializing it.  Continue reading
Grounding & Aspirations help us fly higher
Omega opens doors to lost PTSD veterans
I didn’t want to go back to Omega Institute this year. Each time I travelled to this land of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, I’d get high from the holistic experience. But then I’d change into an Ichabod Crane feeling chased by the Headless Horseman, who’d tell true-life stories that caused so much pain I couldn’t hold it inside. Continue reading
Keeping all Alive a ‘Lifetime Achievement’
After serving in the Vietnam War, I turned my back on anything having to do with the military, and so I was totally surprised years later when, requesting my medals, I got one that I still don’t believe I earned.  Continue reading
Mindfully cleaning pot helps cleanse mind
Cleaning a pot can be very meaningful, particularly if you block out all thoughts and concentrate on nothing but you and the instrument that has helped provide you with so much nourishment.  Continue reading
Being present for the dying brings all alive
Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence.  Continue reading
Need no battle to understand war horrors
When I heard the song “Still in Saigon” the other day, I could have sworn a Vietnam veteran had written about his flashbacks and a need to process what was unprocessed as a young man.
Non-Veterans Can Understand War Tragedies Too
Little did I know that the writer never set foot in Southeast Asia, let alone serve in the military. That got me wondering about the performing arts and how someone who never experienced war could capture its long-term effects on those who faced combat.  Continue reading
Only the Pure in Heart Will See their Goal
Purity.
There’s something in it that resonates with me. In my private moments, I try my best to connect with it, but once I start to analyze it, it vanishes. Continue reading
Exercise Gets Me Higher, Step by Step
I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life.  Continue reading
Point of the bruising is in the treatment
A Benefit Can Outdo the Pain Sometimes
A black and blue mark developed on my chest, and I didn’t notice it until a fellow swimmer pointed it out while I was in a pool at the gym. The mark is a full inch in diameter, and I would gladly take on a half-dozen more for the immense benefit the initial bruising provided me.
Acupuncture eased and minimized my acute pain from a nagging groin pull.  Continue reading
‘Mammy’ can you hear? It’s your little boy!
View All You have Contact with as Your Mother
There is a tradition in Eastern philosophies where you’re taught to view each person and other sentient being as if he, she – or it is your mother. I never knew how nurturing this could be until I allowed the child in me to reciprocate and bask in the most secure and loving place.  Continue reading
Trayvon Martin prosecution fully justified
If I were prosecuting George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, I would charge him with murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice, adding several named officers of the Sanford. Fla., police department – as well as the state attorney – as co-conspirators.  Continue reading
How many times must we say “I’m sorry”?
Will I ever Be Forgiven for My Actions?
Saying you’re sorry can be downright scary.
Particularly, if you’re not sure if the other party will accept your mea culpa even though it’s from the bottom of your heart.  Continue reading
IN HOT WATER AT THE LOCAL GYM!
I never knew the hot water I’d get in at a local gym until I waded into a hot tub and saw one of the gym staffers assault a fellow bather when he paid more attention to the person he was speaking to via headphones than the operations manager, who yanked at his headset, telling him to “Get the Hell Out“. Continue reading
Enlightening Chant Charms Meditation
After chanting a non-English mantra for some time, I finally learned its definition and discovered a gem of wisdom while contemplating its meaning. Meditating will never be the same, and I want to share with others a little of the enlightenment it’s provided me.
Om Mani Padme Hung. Continue reading
A change in time helps change my reality
Reality shifted on me the other day, and it helped me realize that I have more control than my “resifted” thoughts allowed me to see. Now, with a “time-control outlook,” I can try to change my world for the better.  Continue reading
Creativity shines when pure self emerges
Creativity Exists in All of Us.
But only those who nurture it can fully appreciate its magical transformation.
Rush Limbaugh should study reproduction
We should accept Rush Limbaugh’s apology for calling a woman a slut only if he agrees to take and pass a course on female reproduction. Then, and only then, can we be assured that someone other than locker-room juveniles has finally taught him the real facts about the birds and the bees. Continue reading
Let Catholics ‘opt out” in birth control plan
I don’t understand all the fuss that Catholic universities and hospitals are raising over providing health care for women that includes mandatory birth control provisions. Why not let “Practicing Catholics” follow the teachings of their church to “opt out” for the coverage, while permitting non-Catholics what doctors and women’s groups say is a health benefit?  Continue reading
We the People, not We the Corporations
“Corporations are People, my Friend”
Well, if you trace the history of something called corporate “personhood,” you can blame this inglorious recognition on an unelected clerk writing a summary of a court decision that never actually decided this issue.  Continue reading
Seeing a Veteran’s’ History Never Repeats
Do all of us & yourself a favor.
Keep an eye out for a Veteran.
Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading
No where to go but ‘up’ after looking down
The damn branch broke my concentration. I had not planned for an overhanging tree limb to block the pathway, walking three-quarters of a mile from my home to the train station, with my head facing my feet the entire time.
Daily Meditation Desperately Needed
It’s time for my disappearing act to begin. I close my eyes, wave an imaginary magic wand, and slowly begin to vanish from existence here. All thoughts and fears come to an end as I find protection beneath a cloak of invisibility, safe from the savages outside and the demons within.  Continue reading
Don’t ‘better’ yourself by berating another
I was seething when I saw my former US senator decry Blacks receiving food stamps from the government. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told an Iowa audience this week that he would tackle this “race problem” if elected president, thus echoing the sentiments of his old congressional colleague, Newt Gingrich, who suggested poor students in city schools clean the bathrooms for their more affluent ones, rather than grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.  Continue reading
‘Too Afraid’ to Say a ‘Woman Scared You’
“Why did you shoot her?”
“I don’t know.”
With these three words, the defendant buried himself, and no matter what I did to rehabilitate a self-defense claim before the jury, we were sunk. It showed that no matter what one plans, sometimes something can, and always will, go wrong.  Continue reading
Messaging yourself to another generation
Ever wonder what life was like for ancestors living fifty, a hundred or even 200 years ago?
Life-Long Habit ‘Stroked’ Up In Smoke
I can think of many ways to stop a bad habit without having to suffer a stroke that goes untreated for years and years.  Continue reading
Like to Change History? Try Writing It!
How’d you like to go back in time and correct mistakes made in the past? No, you couldn’t go back to the moment before you were conceived, or any other time in your far distant past. Go back to more recent moments – say in the past year or two — when you believed you knew so much about life and how to live it without doing harm to others.  Continue reading
Resolve to Stop Anger from Feeding on Me
Anger.
It hits like a poison arrow causing me to drop what I’m doing and focus on the pain it inflicts.
Recalling childhood angels with dirty faces
I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading
All-women jury renders “unknown” verdict
The one and only time I stood before an all-women jury, I ended up asking for a mistrial after the judge and prosecutor entered the jury deliberation room without my knowledge and in violation of the sequestration rule to safeguard against jury tampering.  Continue reading
Getting High With A Little Help From . . .
I got High Again.
I didn’t know how much I needed a “fix” until my head slumped on my chest and I “awoke” to a restful, calm, and peaceful world I had been away from for what seemed a lifetime. I felt.
Newt, a big-headed, brain-bloated bully
Newton Le Roy Gingrich is a big-headed, brain-bloated bully who is best understood if you picture what kind of kid he might have been and remember why you disliked him and his sophomoric antics while growing up. Continue reading
Reaching Higher In Women’s Company
I Love Women.
I’ll take them in all shapes and sizes, the old and the young, the rich and the poor.
If it wasn’t for women, I — and a lot of guys I know — wouldn’t even be here! Continue reading
When a criminal defendant wants to lie . . .
Someone asked me how a criminal lawyer could ever represent a guilty person.
I told ‘em that was it was easy. My job as an attorney was never to judge, but to uphold something called the Constitution.
It’s the one time, however, that a guy planned to lie to a jury that really got to me.
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All I Want For Christmas Is . . . Nothing!
Am I un-American or anti-religious when I tell you something I’ve been trying to say for years, but have been afraid of hurting your feelings?
I want Nothing for Christmas!  Continue reading
Indulgences for Purgatory from Past Lives
(Caution: Exposure to this post could be hazardous to your health, particularly if you were raised Catholic with a taste of Buddhist and Kabalistic ingredients thrown in the mix.)
Writing Reveals Truth Flowing Within
Why do I write?
The answer is: because I have to. I need the therapy to look deep inside to provide me. I’m not talking about surface writing. You know, the kind a reporter might type when covering some disaster, a meeting, or a political event that might include both. I write only after communing with some sort of truth that bubbles up from within.  Continue reading
Love & Comfort Your Self on Sick Days
Counting to ONE the ‘thought-less’ way
No matter how hard I try, I can never count to 20 before an unbidden thought arises from inside of me. I get to three or four while meditating, and images pop up on an internal screen, capturing my attention. I dare not try this counting method until my body and mind are both well-settled and I can “Let go.” Continue reading
Joseph’s Pregnant Conversion
“Did you hear what I said? I’m pregnant.
Joseph. Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What’s there to say?” the young carpenter named Joseph said to himself.
“You tell me an angel “appeared” and “announced” you were with child . . . You ask me to believe no man had anything to do with this.”  Continue reading
Begging Your Pardon, I Can See You Now
I saw more of the Divine in a beggar on the road to Calvary last year than I did in the three religions occupying Jerusalem. The beggar’s blindness beamed into me, and I’ll never forget the look on his face as I offered him Israeli shekels, and he bowed to me in thanks.
Continue reading
Open my Vessel for ALL Lights to Shine
Thank God for Buddhism.
What’s that you say?
I can’t have one in, and of, the other?
Are you telling this red-blooded American veteran that I cannot follow the teachings of the Buddha and still believe in the God of Abraham? Continue reading
Lucky wants you S M O K I N G, ladies
“Oh my God,” I said as the ad in “Lucky Magazine” finally registered. “Oh my God,’ echoed the 62-year-old woman seated next to me after showing her the promotion to “taste” the “additive” and “natural” flavor of American Spirit Tobacco.
Getting over my shock of seeing such an ad in print, I looked closer at the magazine. Continue reading
My life is dependent on the rest of you
I am as dependent on you as you are on me, as we all are on the kindness and labor of others we too often take for granted.
As I look around, I see that my fortune is dependent on the cooperation and contributions of others. Continue reading
Remembering Warriors of all of our Ages
“Warriors have been rewarded for their service or their families have been provided support, since the beginning of organized society. From the veterans of Egypt in the third millennium B.C. through the Crusaders of medieval Europe, to veterans of today, governments have compensated their military personnel or their survivors, for loss of life, wounds, injuries, or length of service in defense of the state. Continue reading
Tell best friends now why they’re the best!
My best friend died before I could tell him how much he meant to me.
Not a week goes by, that I don’t think of him or see him in my dreams. And if there is one thing I’d want to say to some new friend I might make in this life, it is that I truly treasure your “being there” for me. Continue reading
Giving Thanks For Feeling So Grateful
I want to give “thanks” today, but don’t want to offer it the Norman-Rockwell, “fake-it-‘til-you-make-it” way of the holidays. Instead, I want to share how grateful I am for such taken-for-granted “gifts” that I am only beginning to realize most of us have been given. Continue reading
‘Right to Work’ — now a State of our Union
I’m a union man. Even though I held but one adult job as a dues-paying member, I will always be a union man. Why? Because I believe it’s the truly right path for the working man to walk.
My Loving Prayer to Saint Francis of Assisi
I want to follow and not lead;
Give and not take;
Love and not hate.
Like you, I want to be a soldier of peace and not war; a kind and loving friend to the poor and a prodding yet mild abrasion to the rich. Continue reading
War is never the answer today (11-11-11)
On this Veterans Day, 11-11-11, what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and greet that young man recently returned home from the war?
War is never the answer,
But only a failure on all
Sides to reach an answer. Continue reading
A noble banker needs to occupy here
Is there a noble banker in the world? Only someone in the lending business who sees his calling as a “service for the people,” I believe, could correct past abuses and recommend changes for, and in the best interests of, us “99 percenters.”
Twice snow uncovers October awakenings
It snowed along the East Coast of the United States today (October 29, 2011), making it the first time in more than 30 years the white stuff appeared this early outside my Conshohocken, PA, window.
I remember the last time because it was so life-changing, and I wonder if today’s gift from above will have the same effect on me and my world.  Continue reading
A Message to all of the ’99 Percenters’
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families,
Breathing mindfully helps to unclog me
I never thought I’d be thankful for a stuffy nose, but it helped me to meditate without really trying. It all started on a day I was off from work, and I stayed in bed as ten thousand thoughts ran through my mind. I noticed a clogged nostril and focused all of my attention on trying to reopen it.  Continue reading
“Let’s Occupy a Vital Earth” — (L.O.V.E.)
Let’s Occupy a Vital Earth!
Try it on.
See if it fits and whether you’d be comfortable in adopting it when the Occupation of Wall Street and the protest at a thousand other locations worldwide come to an end.
Advice to any & all Wall Street operatives
- “We all dream of a kinder, happier world. But if we wish to make it a reality, we have to ensure that compassion inspires all our actions. This is especially true with regard to our political and economic policies. Given that probably half the world’s population lacks the basic necessities of adequate food, shelter, medical care, and education, I believe we need to question whether we are really pursuing the wisest course in this regard.  Continue reading
We have met the Enemy and he is Us!
I looked into the other side of the political spectrum, and I saw something I hardly recognized.
I saw myself.
Wall Street never profits anyone’s soul
The phone rang, and Henry Rushing answered it, hoping the call would not delay his weekly trip to church services Sunday morning. The pastor of his Presbyterian Church was on the line. “Henry, you’ve got to prepare yourself,” the cleric said in his most comforting voice. “There are demonstrators outside our building protesting. Their signs have your name on them, and they’re not too charitable with what they’re alleging.” Continue reading
These are the True Signs of Our Times!
When I read the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were unfocused and without a coherent message, I took a closer look at them in Philadelphia, and discovered some were disheveled street persons looking for handouts, and one was a graduate school political science major spouting Marxist teaching.
They Represented Only One Percent.
The remaining 99 percent of the other protestors were mostly young, highly educated, unemployed or underemployed men and women who got tired of the debt-ceiling fiasco and took to the streets to mobilize against the Tea Party followers.  Continue reading
“For the Signs, they are a ‘Changing'”
(From Part I, These are true signs of our Times/)
The greatest protest of our generation is seeking change in all shapes and sizes. You can see it in the signs the demonstrators carry, writing the letters out really big with magic markers so that passersby need not squint to get the messages.
Bliss arises when I still my self in side
Ah, Bliss!
It’s so wonderful to welcome you to visit. You return when I least expect you, embracing me and bringing peace and calm just when I still myself and end needless thoughts.
Are any thoughts actually needed when I go within? I need but seek a quiet moment with no thought save the intent to be free of the past and the future, thus ensuring I will rest “In the Now.”
Choosing death so that others might live
Eight Tibetan Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country. They took their own lives when soldiers of the army set up quarters in Tibetan monasteries.
How could anyone do such a thing?
They must have been in intense pain. Or they were offering overwhelming love.  Continue reading
Grant me a World of Group Friends, Amen!
As my world started to close in on me, demanding its immediate attention toward responsibilities, affairs of work, and needs in my house, I found an oasis inside of myself and in the thoughts of friends in my group.
End needless suffering in US debates
Tone it down, America. You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. The face of the body politic, that is, we are creating needless hurt for the countrymen we’d like to lead to our mutual goal: the pursuit of happiness.  Continue reading
You ask me: ‘WHY I AM A DEMOCRAT?’
Why am I a Democrat?
I was born this way.
No, that’s not right.
I was raised this way.
No, that’s not right either.
I chose to be a Democrat.  Continue reading
Setbacks Arise in Road to Life’s Answers
- Enroute to Shangri-La, I lost my Passport.
- My ticket to Israel and India disappeared along with all paperwork that would allow me to leave the United States to begin a 12-day pilgrimage. The trip of a Lifetime.  Continue reading
Kabbalah To Mingle With Buddhist Jaunt
What do Israel and India have in common with Istanbul and Amsterdam? Other than all starting with a vowel?
It’s where this Philadelphia lad is heading from Nov. 6 through Nov 18, creating a pilgrimage that will touch base with five of the World’s largest religions: Christianity and Judaism, as well as the Muslim and Hindu faiths, ending at the land where the Buddha gained enlightenment.  Continue reading
Acupuncture: ‘Dragon drives out Demon’
A Dragon entered me and drove away a Demon last night.
A student at the WON Institute performed acupuncture, penetrating into my psyche as well as my epidermis. More importantly, she opened her heart with such compassion I wept, feeling her healing spread throughout my body and soul.  Continue reading
Kabbalah pulling here, there, everywhere
I heard some familiar words spoken in a foreign language by two women and a man sitting at the table next to me, but what drew my attention was something that sounded like “Kabbalah.”
Something or Someone got to me!
Nature changes its rhythm just in time
Denise serves up memories at gas pump
I saw you as a little girl with a smile as bright as Shirley Temple, a chocolate-haired “Annie,” a young Rosie Perez.
‘Give Something Back’ starts from within
“I Want to Give Something Back.”
How many times have you heard this? How many times have you said it? “Give something back.” Not sure what that “something“ is, but you know you got it, and you got a “need” to share “it.”
Rabbits scamper at Conshohocken home
I see shiny red eyes staring at me, causing me to decelerate and focus where the gutter comes into contact with the street. Long white objects that look like “ears” move slightly. They twitch and turn in the direction of my car. I pull closer. “Cwazy Wabbit” looks dead at me.
Compliments lift spirits, ages you nicely
Compliment someone today. Tell ’em how nice they look.
Better yet, tell someone you meet what movie star they look like.
Secret code broken by number of rings
I’d ring twice, hang up, then call back immediately.
Hearing the signal, my friend would pick up, knowing he was being called by someone other than a bill collector. Or a “process-server.” Learned to do this while growing up in Brewerytown, a working-class section of Philadelphia, and continued it following a divorce and working as a newspaper reporter.
Who needs glasses to see your self within?
- I wear glasses. Well, I don’t wear ’em, even though I should.
They pinch me. At the bridge of the nose. Cause an irritation to my left ear. Make me feel less good-looking, less acceptable. (As if I really need to be more acceptable nowadays!)
Healthy disdain for $$$ really not healthy
Could never be a good businessman. Did not love money enough.
Never put wealth at the top of a “to do” list of things to achieve. Oh, I wanted to make a comfortable living and get a nest egg for the future. But I had no drive to accumulate big bucks.
You man a job right, job’ll right the man
Jobs have a way of defining us. We become “the job,” or rather grow into what we perceive to be the “ideal performer“ of that job. Whether we like it or not. The job. Or ourselves.  Continue reading
Some lessons go down easier than others
My God, when will this pain end? I can’t take it anymore. Please, just take it away. Or let me die.
This could be the worse day of my life. That would include the pain I’d suffer as bombs explode and persons around me later die in Vietnam. At least that will be quick and done with . . . This agony is so prolonged. And the worst of it is, I brought it all on myself.
Reporting the news takes courage & trust
Most of what I learned about journalism came from observing a true crime reporter named Michael Sangiacomo.
I was just hired by the Pottstown Mercury, a small newspaper some 25 miles outside of Philadelphia (and the home of Mrs. Smith’s Pies), when Sang (Pronounced Sange, as in “Angie) took me under his wing and showed me the ropes.
Never, never reveal your source, he said. And always attribute your source whenever you can.
Utopia Exists in a Mere Change of Focus
Another Reality exists within the here and now, if I can disengage and step out of the World that I am sleep-walking in.
Short Stature Grows Larger With Love
Mr. Nice Guy wins, but loses in the end
I’ve had to push you from my mind, to save my mind. Get you out of my Life to live my Life.
A taste of heaven offered here on earth
Pizza pie and a chocolate milkshake.
Each drew me like an oasis to a man walking alone in a desert.
Meditation helps writer find a gem within
The excitement would start while half asleep, tossing and turning, waiting for morning to jump out of bed, freshen up, and make my way downstairs to discover my latest surprise.
Dance with Achilles Contoveros again
“To Dance with My Father Again.”
What I wouldn’t give, to dance with my father again. Or, more likely, watch others — what seemed like the whole Greek nation — dance with him. My father was a dashing man on his feet. Could pass for the brother of the actor Errol Flynn, always taking the lead for what I called the “Greek Snake Dance (See you tube).”
Continue reading
Hard to believe it got up for TV viewing
“It’s hard to get up for it, sometimes.”
As soon as I saw a videotape of myself mouthing those words on television, I knew I had crossed the line.
But, nobody caught it. Never put infertility and sexual intercourse together to catch the play on words that somehow slipped out, with me never actually intending to say what I had just said.
Injustice should make us all ‘go berserk’
“Going Berserk” has always had a wicked appeal to me.
For brief moments, I’d go “mad,” and not care for my safety or well-being, but focus instead on the object causing a “crazy re-action” on my part. It was as if a volcano had erupted and I wanted to punish those perceived as evil-doers. Might have had a bit of “religious fervor” involved, as I saw myself correcting a wrong or an injustice with a quick upper-cut to the jaw.
Swimming makes the heart ‘go’ fonder
“Smile, breathe and go slowly”~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Feel like I stepped from suspended animation and awoke on a star-ship outside the Galaxy where I’m “floating” majestically on a current of the air.
Can A Wrong Ever Serve Into A Right?
“Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman.”
Never thought an affair I had with a married woman before turning 21 would qualify for “conduct unbecoming,” but looking back, I see how conflicted parties to such an act could become.
Do not disturb a man who’s sweating it out
Growled like a dog at a guy making noise in a sauna I was meditating in Tuesday.
Three times in a row, I gave him a dirty look, lifting my head from the bent, meditative pose staring long, hard seconds as he eventually quieted down. He was drinking water from a bottle. So he says. But it sounded more like he was bathing by splashing water on his arms and legs for some reason only God knows.
Going AWOL helps a boy grow into a man
Went AWOL while a private in the US Army in 1968.
Continue reading500th milestone within October 1st reach
Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord,
I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord,
I’m five hundred miles away from home.
Conceal the word until all are ready for it
Wearing a chest full of ribbons on a khaki-colored shirt with Russian-like epaulets on the shoulders, I grew lots of attention at the Russian Appreciation Day at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia yesterday.