For a brief moment, I thought of praying that he would immediately die for cutting in front of me as I was doing 60-miles-an-hour on the expressway behind a car just five lengths in front of me. I beeped my horn and flashed my high beams at the driver. I relished in the hatred I felt burning inside of me.
I heard the word “Satsang” yesterday, and it reminded me of a journey I started a half a lifetime ago when I had hit rock bottom and sought answers to the meaning of life.
Thích Nhất Hạnh looked at me from the most sorrowful eyes I have ever seen, and I understood what it was like for a person to feel all the suffering the world is experiencing.
I had attended a five-day silent retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery in upstate New York with some thousand others who meditated morning, noon, and night. Someone would ring a bell as you walked through the monastery grounds and just like clockwork, everyone would stop what they were doing and rest in the present moment.  Continue reading
Can you believe it? I did it by visualizing myself getting into a shirt I haven’t worn since I put on extra weight. It’s part of a course I took entitled “Tap into Your Genius” and is based on the teachings of Dr. Joe Dispenza.  Continue reading
To me, it’s a big deal for it is something I haven’t done in quite a while. You see, I have Prostate Problems. I got diagnosed with it while at the VA Hospital, and I take medication every night, but no matter what I do, I still have to get up in the middle of the night and take a pee.  Continue reading
I can’t think of anything to write about.
I feel lost, adrift, less than human.
That is what happens when you make writing your life’s love. You want to write all of the time and never be too far away from what writing can do for you. Continue reading
My Criminal Law Professor just died, and I cried like a baby this past week. I couldn’t help but look at the photograph taken of him presenting me with a Trial Advocacy Award upon graduation in 1988. The framed picture rests on the mantel of an old wood—burning stove in my dining room.
Someone from 100 different countries has viewed this site and my flag counter can attest to the number of nations represented here.
I had tried sitting mediation alone and with others, but was successful only once, and I really don’t know what I was doing. I was following a guru – a 15-year-old teacher from India — before I had turned 30, and I mingled with aspirants in an ashram in Philadelphia. I never touched Nirvana or reached the level that others seemed to rise to. Continue reading
Writing opens me to a world within that I usually don’t visit unless I’m asleep or go into a meditative state. I let go of most thoughts except the one that crops up as I focus on a subject, or rather, it reveals itself to me.  Continue reading
There is a message I receive every time I travel to the IKEA store and visit the “As Is” department. I get a feeling that the Universe is telling me to open myself to the message the Swedish furniture store wants to share with the rest of the world.
Accept life “As Is,” it softly calls out to me. Continue reading
Chocolate was my favorite flavor Tootsie Roll Pop. Cherry was my second. I don’t remember the first time I licked one. I must have gotten the candy at age five or six years old. Continue reading
– a student of Losang Samten. Tibetan Buddhist Monk
My greatest concern while placing political signs on my lawn recently was whether they would offend someone in my neighborhood. I live in a working-class section of Pennsylvania, some 15 miles outside of Philadelphia. It was dependent on steel and manufacturing for many years but eventually saw a decline as jobs left the little Borough of Conshohocken for elsewhere.  Continue reading
I never felt “weak” when I started feeling the rage that grew in me from Post-Traumatic Stress following 25 years after leading an infantry platoon in the Vietnam War. Continue reading
My Uncle Mike was a grizzly white haired Greek who spoke little to no English when my father invited him to stay in our house in North Philadelphia. I don’t know if he really was a blood relative, but he was one of the meanest mother-humpers I had ever come into contact with as a child. Continue reading
If I had a magic wand, I’d wave it all over my body, magically ordering it to relax and begin to accept all the good and the bad life has to throw at me
I would want to treat it all with Equanimity.  Continue reading
September 29th is Michaelmas Day, the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, when everyone with the moniker of Michael will feel the roots extending from our favorite saint.  Continue reading
When the Good Lord created the Universe, He created order out of chaos. He instilled Free Will in earthlings, something he withheld from the angels of whom He created first. Continue reading
I wanted to shoot the political sign I saw outside of Philadelphia the other day but ended up feeling sorry for all of us who react violently against the person we demonize on the other side of the aisle. Continue reading
If I had my druthers, I think I would have made cats and dogs more like people and made people more like the other animals.
Yes, as God, I would have changed the Book of Genesis and created the dog first, and then, taking a rib from the first one, I would have created his loving mate and good friend, the cat. Continue reading
I had my recurring dream again last night. For several years, I have gone to work at the daily newspaper, dreaming that the deadline for submitting copy was just minutes away and I had typed nothing about my story for the day.  Continue reading
I learned years ago that I could hide away from you whenever I feel you’re looking too closely at me or expecting me to act a certain way that I really don’t want to act, to speak, or to even think. Continue reading
“Twelve Angry Men” influenced my decision to practice law more than any movie I can remember while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia and being the first in my family to go to college. The movie has done more for understanding the workings of our criminal justice system than any books or school classes could possibly provide. Continue reading
“What the hell do you have to lose?” Donald Trump shouted to the all-white audience while pretending he was asking African Americans to vote for him last week.
I was unashamed of the tears that fell while watching the father of a young soldier describe the sacrifice his son made for America the other night. Khizr Khan, a Muslim immigrant, spoke with pride at the Democratic Convention and I couldn’t help but see my father in him and the love all parents felt for children called by our nation to defend it. Continue reading
“The First Dude!”
Well, what do you think?  Continue reading
Playing is something I do quite well, if I do say so myself. I enjoyed it ever since I was a kid and don’t see how I could truly enjoy my life if I didn’t incorporate some sort of play in my daily living.  Continue reading
Could my reckless and often unabashed “agitation” be the instigation for another person to find the voice she needed to speak directly from her soul?
It was Saturday morning, May the 19th of 2012. I awoke that early morning feeling well rested. Since the beginning of the new year, I have been working Monday through Thursday, having Fridays off. In the past, when working a full week, my Saturdays were spent sleeping in and catching up on the many hours of sleep lost during the week. Continue reading
I saw the singer and songwriter Paul Simon last night, and he’s “still crazy after all these years.”  Continue reading
I’ve never been so proud of being an American as I was the past week when some forty members of the Senate held an unprecedented filibuster and it was followed up by Congressional Democrats who took the House Chamber hostage for a “sit-in” protest against our nation’s inability to halt the sale of high-powered weapons now being used for mass destruction. Continue reading
Why is anger my “go-to” emotion? Why does it crop up whenever I’m confronted with something I don’t understand or something I feel threatened by?
If you could go back in time to attend a Meet-Up in Jerusalem with the famous rabbi from Nazareth to share some bread, wine and good conversation, would you sign up and go?
It should be as simple as that! If the federal government has reasonable suspicion to place you on a terrorist “No Fly List,” you should also be barred from buying guns.
Peggy’s mother, Mary, answered and said “Hello, Michael.” She didn’t invite me in, but smiled, and I kind of smiled back.  Continue reading
You should never call a woman a bitch.
Particularly if she’s wearing a long black robe and has the power to throw you in jail for anything deemed to be contempt of court. Her Court, that is. Continue reading
I love Coca-Cola. It has been my favorite drink since I don’t remember when. I guess it all started with the small green bottles that you had to use an honest-to-goodness bottle opener to crack open. Continue reading
My second wife stopped breathing shortly after they placed her in the emergency vehicle.
My son, Nicholas, just didn’t seem to understand how much pain I suffered in Sutcliffe Park when I took him to see fireworks on clear and starry night sky on the Fourth of July some years ago.
I’ve opened my mind to a new way of seeing and I am free as long as I can keep my peripheral vision on anything but the object of my focus.
I see my life through the eyes of a kid who grew up in Brewerytown, swashbuckling my way through fights on the streets and later the jungles of Vietnam before finding my true calling as a spiritual clarion who wants all North Philadelphia children to return to their God-given Nature of Love. Continue reading
It was the second time in about a week it turned up missing. The first time was in Korea, and I never detected its loss. The Reverend Lee, the WON Buddhist minister leading a pilgrimage in Korea last week, had approached me with a black object in her hand. She looked worried, and I couldn’t figure out what caused her distress.  Continue reading
Julie traveled all the way from Chicago and came to the Lotus Flower Island with a question about her life’s purpose. By the time she left the privately owned spiritual retreat, there was no doubt whatsoever that she found the answer she was looking for.
It has helped me immensely in calming the “monkey mind” after a wonderful Korean woman introduced it to me, and it took a full day for me to understand its profound ramifications.
Continue readingI’ve been to some ten different Buddhist temples in the mountainous regions of Korea, taking in the rustic, centuries-old magnificent works of art and spiritual creations of man. I felt uplifted when entering doorways that millions, perhaps billions, of others walked through in search of peace and calm on their way to potential enlightenment.
Continue readingPride Cometh Before the Fall.
Continue reading
That’s one of the prayers I’d recite as an altar boy at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church, and I’ll never forget it ‘til the day I die. Don’t ask me what it means right now. I never figured it out as a kid, but I loved to say it!  Continue reading
Korea awaits me next week as I travel more than a thousand miles to find myself and discover reasons why I am still here on planet earth.
The Beatles got it right in the 1960s.
“All You Need is Love.”
The Heinz ketchup bottle illustrated what it could look like . . .
I heard a banjo strum as I fed the birds outside near the plum tree in my yard this morning. Banjo? Strumming? Where could that have come from, I wondered?
Continue readingI went within and felt nothing this morning. I knew this day would come, but I thought I would put it off until the day I’d die. Yes, I thought I’d have enough juice within to tell my story until I took that last breath.
But Life fooled me. It hit me upside the head, showing me, you can’t take anything for granted. All things are subject to change. All phenomena are transitory, all are impermanent. The only permanence that exists is Love I believe that energizes us and the world we all live in. Continue reading
Day 7 – Total Balance Is Natural Balance
If I had a magic wand, I would wave it and remove all of the hate in our land. It would take away the hurt all felt throughout the ages of man from the beginning of time, when Cain killed his brother, and when a stupid Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a lousy bowl of soup.  Continue reading
My host in Freiburg, Germany, escorted me and her husband on a shamanic journey as we lay on the carpeted floor in their guest room, and she guided us to the “lower world.” She drummed for a good 15 minutes, never letting up the beat as she walked around us, covered by blankets with eyes closed and our hearts open.  Continue reading
We’ve all experienced love in one form or another. Most remember the romantic love that may have flourished when we were young and felt the longing to receive the touch of love from another person.
I feel like the character in a comic strip who has had a cloud over his head with nothing but calamities and obstacles blocking his every move. No matter what he did, he’d be thrown off stride, be it from a torrential rainfall or an avalanche along a sunshine-filled pathway.  Continue reading
I got the best sleep I’ve had in years last night and I owe it all to the treatments I have received for not only what ails me, but what has been blocking my lower brain from connecting with my upper brain.
For the past five days, nothing greeted me when I got out of bed.
I grew up in a two-story row house in North Philadelphia in a mixed neighborhood where we played in front of the fireplug and got ice from old ice trucks that made their way up the tiny one-way street. Continue reading
When will I ever learn to trust the Universe?
When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ? Continue reading
I think I’m going “Cat Shit.” You probably heard of someone going “Bat Shit.” But I’m here to tell you that I’ve gone “Cat Shit” and this is the reason why:
Psychometry – the art of visualizing an energy force or spirit from a token or an object – really does work.
The word, “Contoveros” in Latin means “Singer of Truth.” I didn’t know that as a child, when I learned that it was my father’s real last name. Someone at Ellis Island shortened it to “Contos.” One of my wives once told me that the new word means “Short.” Continue reading
It was the ice on the truck that beckoned to me when I was six years old and playing on the one-way street near my home in North Philadelphia. Continue reading
“Think before You Speak” reads the sign that my new best friend gave me for Christmas. She thought of me when she saw it, she said. She knew how many problems I had had with boundaries. Or, rather, lack of boundaries.  Continue reading
“What am I doing here?” I asked myself as I sat in a cushioned chair with some 50 other people early this morning on the last day of 2015. I was here at the invitation of a woman I hardly knew, a minister, who enticed me to join the world in a planet-wide prayer for peace.  Continue reading
I experienced something scientists have labeled “Post-Traumatic Growth” twice in my life and some forty years apart. Both led to major changes in my life and a new look at life like I never had imagined it to be.  Continue reading
“Inner Being” is a State of Mind
I don’t feel my age. I know I’m getting older and will soon meet my Maker. But I just can’t see myself as a senior citizen, let alone someone who will one day praise the glory of Medicare and the free rides on public transportation in Philadelphia.
I love my cousin Betty Ann. She’s a few years older than me but I warmed up to her just as my adolescent hormones started to bubble up as I visited her at her farmhouse in New Jersey years ago.  Continue reading
I would love to write a book about how people actually came to the current journey they’re on.
I know very little about New Age holistic energy and healing. Yet, I believe that some force beyond my understanding has arisen in my life and I’ve become the beneficiary of something mystical.  Continue reading
When was the last time you read a book where you had to stop to digest what you just took in because you wanted to savor what you felt?
I fall to my knees every day and give thanks for at least three things that I am totally grateful for. I usually include my son and at least one of our cats but also acknowledge the advent of a new day as well as a nice new warm bed and the person who invented the heater to keep all of us warm. The cats included!  Continue reading
Saint Francis of Assisi believed so strongly that money was the root of all evil that he had forbidden his followers to ever handle it.
I remembered what love once meant to me, and I thought I’d share it with those of us who might have forgotten it.
Who am I? What do I believe? And can I name a few of my beliefs?
I believe that all of us are placed on this earth for a purpose, and the aim for us in life is to find out what that purpose is!
“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, and more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say . . . ”War is All Hell!”
American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman
If you haven’t tried it, you ought to Google “EFT” and see if such a technique could help with whatever might ail you today!
I grew when meeting four people on Monday who helped me expand my consciousness in ways I had never known existed before. Someone introduced me to the Fifth Dimension, while another invited me to a New Age exhibition in Bucks County, where light-workers of all shapes and sizes would introduce newbies like me to new and exciting pathways to Nirvana.  Continue reading
Death doesn’t seem to scare me as much as it used to. I mean, I see it as a transition, and not an ending. In some ways, it will be a welcome “new adventure” if you think about it in spiritual terms.
Like December 7th, 1941, the date of “9-11” will go down in American history as a new generation’s Day of Infamy.
You wanted more, and I couldn’t give it to you. I was seeking love, romance, and someone I could be committed to. You simply saw me as a “one-night stand.” Continue reading
On this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to offer the song “Joe Hill” to all my union-supporting friends and share the story of the man who helped me as a union organizer in what seems like another lifetime ago. Continue reading
Musical refrains from Rock & Roll songs helped get me through the Vietnam War. I didn’t know all the lyrics of the songs, only those short parts where I’d stop what I was doing and raise my voice in unison with the lead singer. 
Kids I grew up with in the tough section of North Philadelphia said that I had “a lot of heart.” I cherish that statement more than any I later heard as a teenager, a young adult, or someone older looking back on what made him the proudest in his short lifetime.
Reiki melts away stress. That’s how it works on me. I feel parts of my body easing up, relaxing, and “collapsing in” on themselves, if that is possible or, rather, imaginable. I liken the feeling to the green-colored Wicked Witch of the West, who, when splashed accidentally with a bucket of water by the Tin Man trying to douse a fire engulfing the Straw Man, the personification of evil in the Merry Old Land of Oz, declares, “I’m melting. I’m melting.” Water melts away the bad, and Dorothy is proclaimed all that is good.
Contoveros 
