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?
“Crop up” is not the right phrase to use. My anger “erupts.” It goes from zero to sixty within the span of a mini-second. It always seemed to be that way, even as a kid. Now at last I think I know why. Continue reading
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?
How about traveling back some 2,600 years to give a listen to the Four Noble Truths in northern India by a fellow who some claim had reached enlightenment? Would you agree to meet weekly to discuss life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Continue reading
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.
No ands, ifs or buts. Continue reading
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
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 little 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 en route to a hospital some eight years ago. The day was six-months to date of her first bout with an emergency wagon when she fell in our Conshohocken, PA, home suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
She remained in a coma for more than five days then. This time, however, they were more certain that she would not recover from her latest, unplanned date with Miss Fate. A nurse or a social worker at the Hospital suggested I contact a priest to say the last rites for Wendy. Continue reading
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.
At first, I enjoyed the rockets zooming into the air. They were a colorful red, white and blue explosions that took your breath away with gasps of wonder and awe.
Soon however, they took on a menacing demeanor, however, as each blast began to remind me of the Vietnam War and the rounds of mortar fire that fell on me and my platoon some 30 years earlier. Continue reading
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.
What I do is distract myself from looking at the car in front of me when I’m cruising on the highway. I set my gaze off in the distance where I take in the beautiful blue skies interrupted now and again by a while cloud. Continue reading
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
I lost the damn wallet again.
It was the second time in about a week it turned up missing. The first time was in Korea and I never detected it’s 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.
She’ll return to this rustic hideaway hidden away off the mainland of South Korea and, remain there, devoting herself to serving others from around the world who are searching for similar answers. Julie’s newfound happiness will be in helping others suffering from too much technology and not enough love. Continue reading
“I don’t know” is soon to become my life-long mantra.
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.
For me, saying “I don’t know” is a way of humbling myself and admitting that I know very little about the world I live in and what really matters in the scheme of life. No matter how hard I try to “get it right” through searching and throwing myself into one spiritual path after another, the end result brings me no closer to any definite answer and it’s okay to let it go and simply say “I don’t know” to the world.
I’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 a potential enlightenment.
None however, have inspired more of a majestic feeling inside than the new WON Center in Seoul, Korea, where a bolt of soft and pure lightning once again struck me with what I can only describe as a divine presence that’s humbling and elevating at the same time. Continue reading
This chant is recited numerous times by participants in a WON Buddhist meditation as part of a routine that involves chanting, sitting meditation and walking meditation. Continue reading
Pride cometh before the fall.
Ad Deum Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meam!
That’s one of the prayers I would 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. I never figured it out, 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.
Yes, I’m joining a group from Philadelphia, New York and Chicago that will fly to Seoul, South Korea, to take part in the centennial celebration of the WON Buddhism founding by its master on April 28th, 1916. Continue reading
The Beatles got it right in the 1960s.
“All you need is love.”
“Love is all there is.”
————–
I couldn’t agree with them more, particularly after experiencing the warm glow and gentle caress of a bunch of lovers who helped me to open my foolish heart to “A Course of Love.” Continue reading
Carly Simon sang it . . .
The Heinz ketchup bottle illustrated what it could look like . . .
And I have fallen victim to it whenever I try something new and start to visualize what could possibly go wrong. Continue reading
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?
I 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 is transitory, all is impermanent. The only permanence that exists is the Love I believe that energizes us and the world we all live in. Continue reading
Day 7 – Total Balance Is Natural Balance
Question 1 of 4Describe three sources of inspiration in your life that keep you aiming to be a better you.
— Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra’s Free 21-day Meditation
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 birthrate 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 laid 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.
Love also appeared in our lives as infants as our loving mother held us, cradling our small bodies with her hand behind the back of our necks. She held the spot where the brain and skull come into contact with the spinal cord, the neck area.
Jaya Herbst, a lecturer certified by the European Association for Transpersonal psychotherapy – Eurotas, said there can be healing in the touch of one person upon another. But first there must be an intent, a “will” to love to help with the touch, be it to smooth the crying of a child or to hug a grown up who needs the physical contact to know all will be just right in that moment. Continue reading
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
Don’t take my word for it. Scientific research has discovered that the active conditions of anxiety and agitation causes unhappiness. Becoming quiet and stilling the mind lowers blood pressure and relieves the stress that’s produced in our busy lives. Continue reading
I manifested as an African American riding a horse as a cowboy in the old American West.
Next, I felt the chains on my legs as I rowed in a galley ship as a Greek slave in a land governed by the Romans in some year BC.
Sand. Lots of sand with its rich mixture of roughness and tan properties became my next existence.
That was followed by my essence being made up as a piece of glass. A clear glass with a tint of green like the old-fashioned Coca Cola bottles.
Finally I envisioned myself turning into a Soldier of Love with healing powers I never knew existed. Continue reading
What is healing?
Those words in German jumped off the page from a brochure I couldn’t read, but by the end of a presentation in Freiburg, Germany, I got a better handle on who does the healing.
I do! And you do! Continue reading
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 treatments I have received for not only what ails me, but what has been blocking my lower brain from connecting with my upper brain.
I slept like a proverbial baby Continue reading
I felt nothing this morning.
For the past five days, nothing greeted me when I got out of bed.
There was no ache, no pain, no reminder of how bad my back has become after so many years of walking, running and standing on this earth. Not to mention, jumping out of an airplane five times, landing badly my first parachute jump and hiding it from the military instructor who would have kicked me out of jump school had he suspected I injured myself. Continue reading
I grew up in a two-story row house in North Philadelphia in a mixed neighborhood where we played in front of the fire-plug and got ice from old ice-trucks that made their way up the tiny one-way street. Continue reading
I’m having fun.
I’m enjoying life and and feel a peace and calm I didn’t know I’d ever experience again. It’s like falling in love for the very first time. I look forward to each new day filled with hope and a smile for whatever life presents to me. 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:
My son’s cat, Daniel, has developed some ESP skills. Extraordinary Sensing People skills. Continue reading
Psychometry – the art of visualizing an energy force or spirit from a token or an object – really does work.
I recently took part in the practice and discovered insights I never believed possible until I realized I had developed some sort of psychic ability. Continue reading
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 five-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 seeing it, she said. She knew how many problems I have 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, that 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
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.
To tell you the truth, I feel like I’m seventeen years old again. My body would disagree, but my heart and my mind often see things from that period of time . . . It was a time when I had just graduated high school and the world was my oyster, so to speak. Continue reading
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
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
— Marianne Williamson
I would love to write a book about how people came to the current journey they’re on.
You see, I have this tendency of going up to people and asking them how they came to be where they are; that is, spiritually, if you know what I mean. Continue reading
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?
And then while resonating with it, you get a warm glow about yourself; you feel lighter, more connected with the world and so happy that another person can put into words what you know is so true? Continue reading
I fall to my knees everyday 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
St Francis of Assisi believed so strongly that money was the root of all evil that he had forbidden his followers to ever handle it.
Literally!
I remembered what love once meant to me and I thought I’d share it with those of us who might have forgotten it.
I’m talking about the love that hits you upside the head when you’re not looking; the type that won’t let you think of anyone else besides him or her; the love that you wish your lover would feel but you’re too afraid to hope for a schmuck like yourself. Continue reading
Who am I? What do I believe? And, can I name a few of my beliefs?
Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order. Continue reading
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!
We don’t usually seek the answer right away. Most put it off until some calamity forces us to find answers to life’s most important questions. Why am I here? Why am I in this body? Who am I, really? Continue reading
“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
“Unclean” is what my second wife said about an aspect of my spiritual journey that I shared with her. I must have scared the hell out of her because she looked shocked and confused. I didn’t mean to hurt her or make her upset.
But the words she used went straight to my head before I dealt with it in my heart. Continue reading
I grew when meeting four people Monday who helped me expand my consciousness in ways I had never knew 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.
No, I’m not talking about heaven and hell like the Catholic nuns and priests preached to me as a kid at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church where I served as an altar boy and wanted to be a priest until I discovered girls. I’m talking about a transition to a “way station,” a place where your spirit — or soul — ascends to meet with higher spirits or what some might call Ascended Masters. Continue reading
Like December Seventh, Nineteen Forty-One, “9-11” will go down in American history as a new generation’s day of infamy.
In my lifetime, it ranks up there with the horrific day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Continue reading
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.” Someone you enjoyed being with for an hour, a night, or just one day in the life of two ships like us meeting briefly on a night at sea. 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 seem 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. Continue reading
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 even someone in his middle ages looking back on what made him the most proud in his short lifetime. You’d have a “lot of heart” if you didn’t care for the consequences when sticking up for a black kid when a white “friend” called him the “N” word and then classified you as a “N-gger lover” for coming to his defense.
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. Continue reading
Summer always served as a “new beginning” for me when I was in the army. I got drafted on the Third of June and did my Basic Training in the hot, dry air of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I can’t tell you how many push-ups I did during the two-month training session as the meanest drill sergeant I ever seen brought fire to my poor soul by running me everywhere and cussing me out to force me into fighting shape. Continue reading
Much of what I know about war was what I learned while playing as a kid. You know, using a stick or a broken branch from a tree, I’d pretend it was a rifle to shoot the bad guys who were out to get me and the rest of the good guys in my old neighborhood. Continue reading
President Barack Obama may have raised an issue on all wars when he eulogized a fallen comrade on June 26, 2015, at the funeral for the pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
While never detracting from the valor that Confederate soldiers fought with in the Civil War, he offered a plain and simple truth.
The cause they fought for was wrong. Continue reading
We could never ever have a delicate coffee table in our home when I was growing up. My dad – who came to America from Greece when he was only 15 – would smash his hand onto the table, breaking it in two or more pieces. Continue reading
Listen to what the Universe is saying. It may speak to you in ways you might not understand unless you’re open to all means of communication. Continue reading
Closing my eyes, I open all my senses to group meditation!
The smell of lavender and a hint of myrrh greet me as I walk into the meditation room. I had not expected my sense of smell to be the first one to experience such a warm and inviting welcome. I should not have been surprised. The olfactory system is the first sensory organ I usually use, and I’m not too proud to state I am usually lead by the nose. Continue reading
Listen to yourself.
Close your eyes and go within and listen to the sounds of silence. Continue reading
Peggy sat at the table of the Blue Jay Restaurant, staring out the window and wondering where her life had gone, and what she should do with her new condition. Continue reading
I met Abraham up close and personal yesterday and I learned the universe had called me to study the Law of Attraction as voiced by Esther Hicks, the one who channeled for the spirits guiding us back to the Source within. Continue reading
What do you tell a person who wants to know about Buddhism?
What books do you recommend? What authors?
Should she look into mindfulness first, or jump right into a form of Zen Buddhism or the Tibetan Buddhism of the Dalai Lama? Continue reading
I dreamed a lucid dream for the first time in my life last night.
I’ve tried to experience a lucid dream– one where you tell yourself in the dream that you are dreaming — for more than five years after reading about dream interpretations by Carl G. Jung, the eminent psychiatrist who studied with Sigmund Freud. Continue reading
Is “letting go” a feminine trait?
Is it in the same category as “surrender” or “submit” — actions deemed by some son of a bitch to be “unmanly”? Continue reading
What gifts can I offer the world today? What insight, wisdom or thought could I bestow on others seeking the healing we need for our mutual pain and suffering?
I am no psychic. I’ve never seen an angel or felt the tingling sensation from a spirit wanting to use me to provide a message or a sign. I’m no medium. Continue reading
I close my eyes and I enter a world where nothing but love exists within. It is a state of mind I visit more often now that I meditate early in the morning. You see, I roll over in my bed and wrap my arms around me, feeling the warmth slowly develop and then spread throughout my body. I “sense” a flow of energy — liquid energy — like a lukewarm form of lava flowing from the upper arms to my neck and back and then down through the arms, the torso and then onto other parts of my body. Continue reading
First, do no harm.
This quote from a famous Greek of antiquity could be the basis for a new Golden Rule for the Road. Continue reading
The State of Our Spiritual Union is flourishing.
Seeds planted in the 1960s have flowered, and the Age of Aquarius has finally dawned on the world, awakening many of us to a new way of living, a new way of forgiving. The first signs of this new enlightenment began in the 1990s as the Berlin Wall fell, God revealed secrets in the Celestial Prophecy and the mystical Wisdom of Kabbalah was made known to non-Jews and all women, regardless of age or religious backgrounds. Continue reading
Ever wonder what goes into the marketing of a book before it ever hits the book stores or gets on Amazon.com? Well, I never knew until I saw it up close and personal.
I thought you might enjoy some of the steps taken for my second book, “Ithaca Insights,” to be published through CreateSpace. Enjoy! (Note to sharp-eyed readers. I changed the title mid-way through this odyssey.) Continue reading
The person who had the biggest impact on my life was my second wife. She had a 157 IQ, but never once acted as if she was better than me. She easily got angry at injustices, and would on occasion lash out against the hypocrisy of politicians, while helping the underprivileged and the rights of women in a male-dominated society. Continue reading
The guru then made the following announcement, quoting the feminine deity: Moor Jani:
We all have the capacity to heal ourselves as well as facilitate the healing of others. When we get in touch with that infinite place within us where we are Whole, then illness can’t remain in the body. And because we’re all connected, there’s no reason why one person’s state of wellness can’t touch others. Elevating them and triggering their recovery. And when we heal others, we also heal ourselves and our planet.
There is no separation except in our own minds.
Goodbye. I’m leaving you after this. I felt I needed to write this, because I really don’t know what tomorrow will bring, or the day after . . . All of it is a mystery to me. And, I’m afraid. Continue reading
An Odyssey begins and ends with a mystical adventure that finally takes you back to the home within. Follow the path to Ithaca for insights!
Someday I may just get my stress under control.
And like Buddy Holly once said: “That’ll be the day . . . that I die.” Continue reading
By Contoveros
What did I learn about Francis of Assisi while researching the facts about his life?
He wanted to grow up to be a crusader and fight in the Crusades which had gone on for some one hundred years when he was born in 2081 or 2082.
Francis fought in a battle between the city-state of Assisi and its neighboring town of Perugia, which sided with the nobility and wanted to continue with the feudal system. Continue reading
(See Part One, “Cancer strikes . . .)
The train ride from home to the hospital was one of the longest trips of my life. I just knew I was going to die. I figured that the surgeon could not remove all the cancer during my operation 10 days earlier, and it finally struck me: I am a cancer victim!
The doctor never called me with the results from the operation in the Veterans Hospital of Philadelphia. I spent five days and four nights there, mostly recuperating from the surgery. When I left, I had hoped to hear from the physician, but she didn’t call. I believed she was afraid to give me the bad news over the phone. Continue reading
Simply knowing that I wrote a book is one helluva experience.
Seeing it on amazon.com is breath-taking! Continue reading
Check it out. It’s called: “Francis of Assisi, A Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty”
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For a look at the book, click on Francis of Assisi
Good enough is the lazy man’s way to enlightenment . . . There’s nothing more to do . . . Your job is good enough . . . Your spouse is good enough . . .Your life is good enough . . . Your meditation practice is good enough. . . You don’t need anything more, and what you now have is good enough. — This is all according to a young monk, – Ajahn Khemavaro, who spoke on Impermanence, in a 2008 presentation, “Everything Will Be alright.” Continue reading
North to Alaska!
That’s where I’m headed next week and I’ll start checking off the newest box of my “bucket list,” the list of things I want to do before I “kick the bucket.” Continue reading
When you’re down and feel like nothing, God is usually up to something just for you.
That’s a saying on a church sign outside of Philadelphia hat I edited and slightly changed and can safely say is now mine. Continue reading
While growing up in a Catholic School, I met all kinds of nuns. Some I liked more than others. I was kind of like the class clown, or a class-clown wannabe, and got called out by many of the good teachers wearing the black coverings with the bullet-proof white vests covering their chests. I went to Saint Ludwig’s, a church school in what was then a predominantly German neighborhood of North Philadelphia called “Brewerytown.” Continue reading
What a surprise!
I expected to try to get through the day today without my morning cup of meditation-offering from Deepak & Oprah. I figured the 21-day journey had ended yesterday, August 31st. Yet today, the American holiday called “Labor Day,” they gave us a gift — an extra day. And boy, did I need it. Continue reading
Contoveros 
