On February 5th, 2012, a friend who calls herself, the Frugal Xpat, commented:
I didn’t respond to the comment until now, but I want to share how everyone could enjoy this exercise the Frugal Expat spoke of in Daily Meditation Desperately Needed. As she describes her life’s quest, she is on “An expat’s journey in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.” Continue reading
Dealing with the Vietnam War becomes a little easier each time I write about it. I “desensitize” myself. I now see my actions as separate from the emotions I felt while a young soldier, as well as the feelings of guilt many veterans like me, imposed on ourselves while readjusting to civilian life. It’s helpful when a high school student asks questions and you try to be honest and direct.
Continue reading
Shifting into cruise control, I let myself glide through many of life’s activities nowadays. I relax, take several deep breaths, and seek a place inside where there are no thoughts, no worries, and no frets.
I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading
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
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
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
Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence.  Continue reading
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
I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life.  Continue reading
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
It hits like a poison arrow causing me to drop what I’m doing and focus on the pain it inflicts.
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
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.
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
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?
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
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.
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.”
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.
They must have been in intense pain. Or they were offering overwhelming love.  Continue reading
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
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
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.
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have cursed out drivers on the open highway and prayed their mothers had never conceived them. In or at of wedlock, those dirty b . . . . . .
Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday.
When my father spoke Greek with the disciplinarian of the Catholic High School where I played hooky at age 14, I thought I had it made.
Continue readingYou invited me to your House, and I broke confidence in you.
Give without seeking a thing in return. Oh, I’ll get pleasure out of the deal. But I’ll put a lid on it. Screen out the joy that can overwhelmingly fill me, and direct the bulk of that feeling to another. Deflect it to one needing nurturing that only a mother’s love could offer her youngest child.
Rain pours on me outside, while soft music warms me on the inside. “Abraham, Martin, and John,” the song, plays from this relatively new gadget called a portable, hand-held, transistor radio.
Be careful what you wish for. You could get your heart’s desire and wish you had never asked for it in the first place.
I felt like Alice falling in the hole after chasing a White Rabbit. But, falling “upwards” defying the laws of Gravity and Rational Sense.
Got Blanket Absolution yesterday. And, it felt so good, I became a 12-year-old again. Ready to face the world with a clear conscious and a pure heart.
Try to “feel” You. And I do! All Blessed You. In just the right amount to fill a soul that wishes it were bigger, larger to contain more and more of Your Love that’s omnipresent, all around me. And in me.
Grace suffocated and I retaliated by smashing my ego to help free up her passageway during group meditation this morning.
The pain feels like someone thrust a spear in my back. That I was in battle. At the city of Troy. Fighting with fellow Greeks for the foolish prize of a minor King’s run-a-way, but lovely, wife, Helen. She with a face that will launch a thousand ships.
A gentle “pull” manifested in my Life recently. I noticed it last night while driving and wanted no more than to live in each passing moment.
It’s just like heaven . . . Being here with you . . . You’re like an Angel. Too good to be true. When You are near me. My heart skips a beat. I can hardly stand on. My own two feet. Because I Love You; I Love You, I Do. ‘Angel Baby’. My ‘Angel Baby’. Oh, Ooh, I Love You, Oh, Ooh, I Do . . . No One Could Love You . . . Like I Do!
Hello! Anybody here? It sure is dark inside. Like a huge cavern with hardly any light.
Fell head over heels in love the past few weeks. Didn’t want to do it. Had always gotten “hurt” in relationships, knowing from the start they’d come to an end one day. Love seemed to change that way. To peter out. End not with a “bang,” but with a “whimper.”
The Greatest Weekend — No. II
Glenda “laid hands” on me; I lost track of who I was and why!
I had stubbed my toe helping three guys move a heavy piano from one section of the room to another, when a leg got too close to the big toe, and I yelped like an injured animal, but held onto my section, maneuvering the mahogany-framed instrument to the center of this place of worship.
“The Crossing” filled me with sounds of the Rapture last night as I surrendered to the harmonies some 25 voices offered me on entering Heaven. Continue reading
Walked a Labyrinth and stepped into Vietnam last night.
Trouble is . . . I liked it. Did not want to leave the maze despite what lay ahead. Strangely, I felt “safe” there. Secure in my “skills.” Didn’t want to come home. Just like years earlier.
Back talk. Anyone experiencing pain might know where I’m headed. My back is talking loud and clear, and no matter what I do, I can’t shut it up.
You opened my heart to something I closed years ago.
Not ready to look inside. Almost, but not just yet.
“He wrote speeches for the governor,” I heard you whisper to our Cousin John Westergom of whom I have not spoken more than 20 words in the past 40 years. I detected a hint of, I don’t know, admiration or acknowledgment of an achievement I don’t normally dwell on, one I almost forgot. You spoke of something I had tried to forget. My past.
Don’t want to look at it. Or focus on it, the so-called achievements, that is. My future’s going to be so much brighter. The best years of my life are still ahead. Don’t want to sit on my laurels as if Life has passed me by, following a “retirement” of sorts with this PTSD disability. I still hope to do so much more and give plenty of myself to humanity, if only in some humble way.
You reminded me of something my mother might have said with pride . . . that her son, Michael J Contos, had gotten a Finnegan Fellowship to study state government in Pennsylvania, thereby insuring a dinner at an awards banquet with then PA Governor Milton J Shapp.
I had studied journalism at the Community College of Delaware County, and was placed in the “public relations” division of Penn DOT, the state department of transportation, where I wrote a speech for the governor, several press releases and provided the “voice over” for a television newscast introducing new buses that “kneeled” to let persons with wheel-chairs enter public transit buses.
“This is Michael Contos, WGOL, Harrisburg,” I said in my one and only broadcast news report.
It was an achievement, writing for the governor. He used the speech verbatim, and I made copies for my resume of “news clippings.” Never did get a copy of the voice-over. The VCR was not in wide use — if in use at all — in the early ’70s.
I wanted to tell you, “It was no big deal.” The kid from a tough Philadelphia neighborhood, Brewerytown, made good despite his working-class roots. You see, I simply dug out a copy of an earlier speech the governor had given, brought it up to date, and put a new spin on it by adding a few of my words that “Democrats and Republicans alike will join in the celebration” for the construction feat.
Also wanted to tell you I wrote a fictional short story that summer, two years out of the Vietnam War. The writing got a second-place award in an Altoona, PA, contest. (Again, no “biggie,” even though it got coverage at Temple University when a teacher published the news in the school’s “house organ.” That’s newspaper jargon for a company-operated newsletter.)
You’re the only one of my extended family I feel such a “Motherly” connection with, if that is the right word for it. The type of connection I denied myself growing up, for fear of resting before I could reach some goal, some summit I wanted to ascend to prove I was . . . worthy . . . as a person . . . as a man.
I missed out. Stayed focused too much and too long on nothing but achievements. Now, I want to share those stories I minimized in the past; I didn’t want anyone to think I got a “Big Head.” Still don’t, and that’s one reason why I’ve been reluctant to share. Afraid I’ll see how unimportant it really was . . . that I was just chasing windmills, if you know what I mean.
Want to visit the farm where Aunt Betty and Uncle Lenny showed us so much love; want to walk barefoot in the sandy roads leading to nearby Atlantic City. And pick lots of blueberries until the proverbial cows come home. Thanks for keeping the light on for this drifter, this black sheep of the family. Hope there’s still time enough for us . . .
He rode the rails from East to West Coast, eating chicken and other foods he’d “gather” during the years crossing this great land, even ending up in Alaska, where he prospected for gold.
I never felt more like Don Quixote than when I represented a woman charged with a crime.
I felt the pain all the way to the emergency room, believing the knife was still lodged there. I could not tell . . . I dare not turn to try to see or touch it.
Wasn’t sure a Gospel Song would fit in with Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) at a music appreciation meet last week.
Still can’t understand why I chose Bobby Darin, the “Splish Splash” originator, to represent my musical taste. We were encouraged by the hosts, a young couple, to bring music that meant a lot to us, perhaps meditative offerings and/or those pieces that represented a special time in our lives.
Those are the words Jesus said on reappearing in public in 2012.
The Kingdom of God is Within, He added.
But each of us must seek it ourselves through ourselves.”
When I first saw the term, I thought of Zorba the Greek, played by Anthony Quinn, who embraced the fullness of life through robust emotions and actions. To laugh in the face of hardship and spit in the face of death, enjoying that special moment of life as if it was the last, and to hell with what anyone thinks.
To hell with negative thoughts. Live Life with the smile God meant us to project outwardly as well as within.
So is my astigmatism. Not to mention a cataract in my left eye.
An African American woman showed me how to take on the suffering of the world during a five-day retreat on perfecting perpetual peace in my soul.
The moment of truth came down to one question: “Who else was with you?”
I looked to the floor and didn’t answer until the head of a juvenile aid panel from Philadelphia Family Court asked me to speak up.
I never took my eyes off the gun. The man’s hand shook. I was afraid it would go off. Raising my own hands, I prayed that he would not shoot, and said “I’m coming out,” slowly climbing out of the window, placing one foot on the ground and then the other as I exited the ACME supermarket warehouse building two blocks from my home. Continue reading
A friend dreamed she could not swim well in water and had to return to the shore or face peril. It seems the dream reflected her real life. (See “To Be Me.”) She said she was not a very good swimmer, and she wondered why — even in one’s dream — we impose such limitations on ourselves?
I feel a healing begin, as tears form, and I am so grateful to release what’s building inside — something so wonderful it becomes too good to contain.
I wish I were bigger. I’d have a greater capacity to handle the joy that’s flowing to all parts of my body. It’s like a liquid, this healing I feel, almost palpable like an elixir that cures each and every doubt, concern, and thought from one’s past or future.
“Michael J,
The biggest lie you ever told was that you could say something about sexual orientation and not hurt someone whose way of life might be different from yours. You said you lied when you told an ex-girlfriend that you were gay to avoid having sex with someone you were not ready to have a long-term commitment.
What’s the biggest lie you ever told?
I’m talking “whopper” now. None of the “little white lies” kinda story. But one that would qualify as a Bold-Faced LIE!
Mine was to an ex-girlfriend. Not a lie to hide, I had been with another girl. Or why I forgot an anniversary or her birthday.
Got dragged and nearly fell beneath a train before finally letting go of a freight car’s metal handholds. Don’t know how far my legs scraped and bumped along the wooden beams and fistfuls of rocks strewn from track to track. Don’t remember how long I lay on the ground, long after the train rolled by, thanking God for letting such a foolish boy like me continue to live.
Reaching out with my right hand, I’d grab the metal ring. I would stand on my toes to pull it closer to the wooden platform I was balanced on. Gotta pull the ring back. Pull it so I can get the proper swing to the next ring. If you glide out without an extra pull, you’d fall short and drop to the ground, a failure.
Sundance sneezed five times. Shouldn’t have surprised me. I “felt” I was helping her as she lay across my legs, jettisoning hundreds of microscopic objects onto my leg and arm where her small furry head had just rested.  Continue reading
The “kid” still got it. Swam 36 laps this afternoon, the first time I’ve exercised in four months.
What? It’s been four months since I been to LA Fitness. Four months since I hit the Olympic-size pool, take in the whirlpool, as well as spend time in the sauna? Actually, spent more than 15 minutes in the sauna to get rid of all the “toxins” people tell me I need to get out of my system.
The only thing that seemed to help Mary was the tears.
The act of crying seemed to “loosen up” and cushion the fear and anxiety that would strike her unexpectantly. Every time she’d hear a siren, she’d feel her chest tighten, her palms sweat, and her heartbeat race. “Twenty minutes” she’d say and look at a watch or a clock. It will all be over in 20 minutes. The world as she knew it would all be over. Destroyed by nuclear war.
It was the soldier who gave you freedom of the press, not the reporter
It was the soldier, not the poet, who gave you freedom of expression
See. I can’t go 12 words without letting out some sort of “expleted deleted word,” even one as mild as a “damn.”
“Belief in God, and
following Buddhism
is not incompatible.”
I was in the Army less than a week when the news hit me. I had my head shaven; my civilian clothes exchanged for fatigue pants and a shirt, not to mention boots and headgear, something I had never worn before in my life.
Got drafted on the Third of June, the day that Billie Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge! I was 19 years old in 1968 — knew no one — and was away from my Philadelphia, PA, home for the first time.
Got a check for $9 in the mail yesterday. It was for travel expenses on a trip I took five months ago. It came to me like magic. I must have lost it in the IKEA store of Conshohocken, and it just appeared out of nowhere for my return trip.
Back to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. A campus in Rhinebeck, NY, where I will return today (April 21, 2010) for another retreat on PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Ruby,
You tell me you wish that we could have an eraser in our lives to go back and “Erase Our Mistakes.”
Got a quick “fix” for you. But don’t try to finger this “hit” unless you’re alone, or with someone you trust.
It is what I call a “tactile chant.” Oh, I know what you’re going to say. Here’s more New Age stuff. Another scam for the public. Spiritual babble for a get-rich scheme. But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. About something that could enhance your Life!
I felt free for the first time in a long time today. Dr. Jodi Schwartz-Levy conducted a Somatic Therapy session for four practioners, and each walked away with all expectations met. And then some.
Twice. Once on my stomach, the other on my back. Got “acupunctured.” Second time for my back. First for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Back got punctured a dozen times in various parts of the body, starting in areas other than the back.
Opening up to a stranger is never easy. But when you feel trust and an open vulnerability offered to you, you can shed your safeguards and become the loving person I believe we were always meant to be. Just yield slowly.
Reach inside of yourself. Look for the Love. It’s there. Now, let it flow throughout your body, your system. Never mind thoughts trying to intrude onto this feeling. Your love is stronger and mightier than any thought — negative or otherwise.
Contoveros 