Never know what you’re going to find when you begin to re-read some of the messages you received on your WordPress Blog Posts.
I was nominated for the “Liebster Award” which is recognition of blog post writers by other bloggers. The author used the name of “Lillies Loves” at her site, and had offered the award in a message I had overlooked until I saw it in response to a post I wrote several years ago about the Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah.
Continue readingI began a major endeavor this month to re-edit all of the Blog Posts that I had written over the years, and it has re-opened many of the hopes and dreams that I once shared while writing and sharing messages at Contoveros.Wordpress.com.
Continue readingIt’s been six months since I entered the hospital and got transferred from one rehabilitation center to another, but I think I may have finally licked the worst of my ailments and am ready to join my old household. I still have trouble walking from one room to another, and I need assistance from someone walking behind me while climbing up the stairs.
Continue readingI was escorted from my home by a Uber driver for the first time in my life when I learned the Veterans Administration provides the service free for disabled veterans.
Continue readingI believe that I am finally cured of pneumonia, rhino virus bacterial pneumonia that is, which I believe I got after Covid struck me for the second time in October and stayed with me through what I thought was nothing more than a persistent cough and excess phlegm problem.
Continue readingI believe that is what the Universe is telling me as I have gotten older and time has caught up with this aging body that – for the life of me – can’t physically handle everyday chores and activities I routinely completed some six months ago.
Continue readingI will be participating this Sunday in a gathering sponsored by a group presenting a woman I have followed for more than 10 years on a spiritual journey. Lorna Byrne is a woman from Ireland who has been seeing and speaking with angels since she was two years old and written several books on how we can open ourselves to the angelic realm that exists for our benefit.
Continue readingI never thought that words I wrote on a slip of paper and dropped into a suggestion box would somehow enlighten me!
Continue readingThose are the words that sprung from my heart and soul as I took in what the jury provided the entire world with their unanimous decision to convict a former USA president.
Continue readingThey say that “bad things happen in threes.” But I’m here to tell you that good things can happen in threes if you but open yourself to ’em.
Continue readingA Trivia game I played with senior citizens recently at the Upper Merion Senior Service Center focused on musical songs that contained numbers in their titles.
Continue readingI am about to get one of those RSV shots at the VA Hospital of Philadelphia to prevent any lung infection, and I wanted to share my enthusiasm for all the work the Veterans Administration has provided me with most of my adult life.
Continue readingDoes Fate have anything to do with the day that a person is born? Can one person born on the same date years earlier have some sort of influence on someone born years and perhaps even centuries later?
Continue readingWhile attending the 10th anniversary of the Center for Contemporary Mysticism, a mystical experience opened my eyes to so many spiritual possibilities.
Continue readingIt has taken me three years to complete one study and a mere two years to finish the other, but I believe I have contributed to the scientific understanding of researchers for possible heart ailments and changes in thinking and memory for adults.
Continue readingWhile just starting to meditate, I could not get rid of thinking about the pains I was feeling in my body.
Continue readingPhysical therapy, that is. Although I could probably use a little for my mental well-being. (Just kidding.)
Continue readingThis month marks the 50th anniversary of when the Vietnam War finally ended. A Peace Accord was reached on January 27, 1973, making way for the complete removal of all troops by March 29th of the same year.
Continue readingOne of my all-time favorite authors – a veteran who was a POW and a staunch anti-war advocate – would have celebrated his 100th birthday this month.
Continue readingAnd the person who framed me was none other than my son, Nicholas.
He framed all my medals from my enlistment in the US Army more than 50 years ago, including my service in the Vietnam War.
Continue reading“Potential Spam” is the innocuous term that Verizon classifies as one of several phone calls I get each day on my cell phone.
Continue readingI have been honored this Veterans Day through a recorded interview about my book on the Vietnam War for a program called “Good Morning Conshy,” where I share the broadcast with two companion pet managers for what is known as PACT. Many of the animals had assisted veterans who could no longer care for their pets and needed help for animals they viewed as their children.
Continue readingauthored by Michael J Contos
at Contoveros.wordpress.com
Continue readingI got a call from my doctor at the VA Hospital of Philadelphia after having blood drawn earlier in the day. He was concerned about an increase in some bad things involving my prostate.
Continue readingI experienced one of those “holy shit” moments the other day.
You know the type of experience you get from something you see, hear, or read, and you just have to say to yourself, out of earshot of everybody else, something like: “holy shitoli!”
Continue readingWhile I am still able to recall in some detail highlights of my early life before true adulthood, I decided to write them down for future generations and others who may want to commiserate with my adventures and misadventures.  Continue reading
I meditated this morning and realized there were few, if any, sounds coming from the street outside my home. Traffic usually provides noise from cars and trucks as motorists make their way along the suburban road in Conshohocken, PA, some 14 miles outside of Philadelphia.  Continue reading
Today is Vietnam Veterans Day, and the Year 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of my deployment in the war zone.
I was a 21-year-old Second Lieutenant placed in charge of a platoon of some 25 men, many of them still in their teenage years and drafted like I had been.
I got promoted while in the field, and I remember using a black pen to darken the so-called yellow “butter bars” of the 2nd Lt. and make them a shade of subdued OD silver, the color for a 1st Lt.
The first person killed when I was “In-Country” was 1st Lt. Victor Lee Ellinger, who was shot by a sniper while leading the Third Platoon. Two members of our Second Platoon died when they placed a claymore mine along a path and forgot where they tied the wire, walking into it and blowing themselves up.
No one was killed under my command, but five grunts were wounded when mortar fire exploded on us one day. I view that as the worst day of my life during that “Crazy Asian War.”
We would be dropped by helicopter in an LZ and “hump the boonies” for 14 days in a row. In addition to experiencing firefights, we also marched through swampy areas, getting leeches that stuck to our bodies, needing to be burned off. I never parachuted into the triple canopy jungles of Vietnam, although I went to “jump school“, earning my Paratrooper Wings at Ft Benning, GA. I also learned how to repel, sleep in the rain, and avoid scorpions while training at Jungle School in Panama.
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I never shaved or used deodorant while in the field. Many of us stopped wearing underwear because the cloth took so long to dry when it had rained. We didn’t want to get crotch rot while on a search and destroy mission.
The coronavirus reminds me a little of what it was like 50 years ago. We never knew who the next one shot might be or be wounded from a hidden landmine or booby traps. Like today, our government really didn’t know what the hell it was doing. And we also had to abide by social distancing while moving.
I remember when a lieutenant colonel whom I loathed chastised me for failing to ensure my men kept a proper distance while moving from one place to another. The Third Platoon leader was shot, and I was ordered to go to his assistance. I force-marched my troops mercilessly in hopes of getting to Vic. But we were too late. He died, and two of my men had to be medevac’d out of the jungle because of heat exhaustion.
But what did Lt. Col Sallucci do? He was the only commander I knew whose own men tried to “frag” him by tossing a hand grenade at his sleeping quarters.) The SOB had flown in a helicopter above our marching lanes and chewed me out later for having let my men walk too close to one another. A hand grenade could take out more than one person, he said. Talk about the need for social distancing!
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Yes, times can be tough when you don’t know what tomorrow might bring in a possible world of pestilence, war, famine, and death.
But we combat veterans can take solace that whatever life throws at us back here in the civilian world, we can always say, “At least no one is shooting at me!”
It is hitting me more and more lately, particularly since I decided to do my own taxes for the first time in my life and not pay out nearly $300 to have a professional do the work.  Continue reading
Writing has opened me to a world above and beyond my five senses and I feel like an H.G. Wells whenever I revisit the past and recall what life was like when I was fortunate enough to stop the world for a few brief moments and write about something. Continue reading
A steady drip from the faucet of my kitchen made my day today as I shouted “Halleluiah” during one of the worst snowstorms of my entire life.  Continue reading
I remember . . . cutting the back of my hand while running beneath the boardwalk in Atlantic City. It is the earliest memory I can recall. I couldn’t have been any more than three or four and cannot for the life of me remember anything else I had done at that moment in time. Continue reading
I experienced the Presence of God when I was 12 years old but didn’t know it until some fifty years later when I meditated and realized how much the Divine had filled me when I was praying for a girl I had just met on that glorious pre-teenage weekend. Continue reading
Alexander giggled like a schoolboy as 40 of us gathered for a service on Sunday and quietly attempted to meditate for about 30 minutes.
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
A “dead-dog-loser” is the name trial lawyers gave to cases no one expected you to win in court. I had a few of them and always tried my best to get a defendant to plead guilty before making a fool of myself and him by calling his case “ready” for trial.  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
– a student of Losang Samten. Tibetan Buddhist Monk
I am free. For once in my life, I can say to the Universe that I am a free man and will always be free as long as I remember not to put on the shackles that tie me to this material world.
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
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
“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
I typed this over and over again, hoping that one day I’d learn the fine skill of typing as I sat in a class with all girls. Young women, I should say. I was the only male in the Delaware County Community College course of study, and I never once felt out of place or unusual.
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.
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
I never wanted a cigarette as bad as I did when I got thrown into a “lockup” after getting kicked out of the courtroom by a judge whose ire I had raised by raising my own voice at him.  Continue reading
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 have no idea what Saint John of the Cross meant when writing about his spiritual struggles several centuries ago, but I feel as if I’ve been going through one all day today. 
Had he said one more word about my feet, I would have swung at his big Irish head, caring not one lick about the consequences. To hell with any spiritual pilgrimage. To hell with finding answers to this life and any other god-forsaken one!
Emotions run high in darkness, but clear light will always prevail
I felt out of sorts earlier in the day and had confided in the minister for six of us making up the Philadelphia contingent for the Centennial Celebration for WON Buddhism. She noticed I was down and advised me that another person I had some friction with would need to work out the problems they had themselves.
I felt uplifted and meditated on a park bench outside of a magnificent soccer stadium where more than 50,000 people would squeeze into the facility and get an inspirational sermon from the dharma master, only the fifth one in the line of major spiritual dharma leaders since WON Buddhism was started on April 28, 1916.
I ate like a Native Korean, stuffing myself with delicious rice and beans, tender fish, and a hearty portion of beef. I didn’t mind the vegetables that came with every meal, including breakfast. (I don’t know of anyone in America who has ever had to eat vegetables for breakfast. I’d call that un-American.) But I heartily ate what tasted like little pancakes, which I knew had green and red things mixed in because it was good for you!
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I resonated with much of what the Prime Dharma Master Kyongsan said, particularly about reincarnation and how we as a society have made the elevation of “matter” — what I believe he meant as science and technology — more important than our spiritual lives.
“With this Great Opening of Matter
Let there be a Great Opening of Spirit.”
– Founding Master Sotaesan
This is the “founding motive” of Won Buddhism’s teaching, this holy man said. And it made a lot of sense in 1916 when telephone lines were being introduced into Korea (for the royal family) and tracks for the coming of the railroads were laid in what was still a united country. Little, if any, emphasis was given to the moral compass of the nation or to the human spirit of the entire world, for that matter.
Hence, the creation of a “spiritual power” that could conquer the material power that has (in my words) “run amok.”
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I wanted to dwell in the spaciousness of what I had just heard from this holy man of whom I met earlier this week, genuflected in front of, and bestowed a kiss on his hand before he realized some crazy American had fallen in love with his very presence.
I wanted desperately to talk about it with others moved by such an eloquent understanding and discourse on the human condition that the latest dharma master said was barely surviving today in the “emergency room.”
But I had to rush out and get into a van and travel dozens of miles with no discussion or debate of what my heart had just exposed me to, and longing to open more for. I felt deflated following such an exuberant outing. I felt unfulfilled. I felt alone.
When my roommate brought up my stinky socks, I took them to the bathroom and washed them — and my feet. But when he said more when I came back, he was lucky I didn’t hit him with every negative feeling this post-traumatic stressed-out veteran with a near-blinding red rage was having trouble keeping boiled up inside.
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Where had my peace of mind gone? Where was the love? What kind of monster switches from such a loving and understanding person, to one who wants to do bodily harm to another spiritual seeker, and care not what wounds he might receive in return?
If that’s not a “Dark Night of the Soul” on a spiritual path, then I don’t know what you would call it. I’m glad I didn’t swing. I’m happy for both our sakes that I left the room with a lot of cursing on my part but no physical contact.
Calmness has returned. Getting away from the stressful situation is the first thing psychologists tell those of us with PTSD to do.
Writing about it also helps. It is as therapeutic as meditation can be.
I just hope someone seeking a spiritual path like the one I’m on doesn’t get turned off by this public Internet confession.
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(Note. My roommate and I just made up before midnight, and I’ll be returning to the room with less smelly feet and a heart that is on the mend. His too!
That is, his heart and not his feet.)
Pride Cometh Before the Fall.
Continue reading
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
The Shaman applied pressure with his fingers and thumbs to the side, back, and front of my skull. He told me to let him know if he caused me any pain.
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.
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
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
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 didn’t know how much joy there could be in grief until sorrow encompassed me and a warm flow of unconditional love spread throughout my entire being. Someone I knew experienced a death in her family and it hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks when I learned of her demise. Continue reading
Mental illness scares the shit out of me. The very term conjures up images of some crazed guy with wild, straggly hair and a demon-like smile of malevolence. Steven King kind of comes to mind when I think of someone who might be a little touched in the head. A Stephen King character, that is. Not Stephen King.  Continue reading
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
I am to be executed tomorrow and tonight I’ve been offered the chance of a lifetime. I can eat anything my heart desires!  Continue reading
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
It’s finally over — the Big Dump has ended! A thousand and one useless items I’ve been hoarding for 30 some years got picked up and hauled away. I feel exhausted but relieved like I just ran a 5-mile marathon and can’t take another step until I stop and rest. 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
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
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. 
When I write, I try to tap into the child within. I try to “feel” something that I can share with another, be it humorous, educational or shocking.
I have stories to tell from my past that brought me to this point, and I think they may help others to feel what I feel and to take action, even if that action is simply to refrain from acting or even thinking.
Continue readingListen 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. 
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 led by the nose.
Continue readingClose your eyes and go within and listen to the Sounds of Silence. 
Disregard the constant jabbering of the Monkey Mind that doesn’t seem to know when to shut up. Pay no heed to it, and it will dissipate like a cloud on a windy day.
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. 
She had hoped that the signs she felt from her body were false and that she was simply sick. But she knew from what happened to her older sister that there was no getting around the truth.
I believe that I have become a “Spiritual Soldier of Fortune” and would travel anywhere my heart beckons me to learn, to pray, and to find answers about the Universe.
Today, while in what I call the “Post-Meditative State,” I wondered if something spiritual might have occurred when I was much younger. I then thought of a time when I was in first grade at a Roman Catholic Church School. Sister Saint Leonard had chosen me to be one of the so-called angels. The duty of an “Angel” was to guide the second graders to the front of the church where they were to receive their first Holy Communion from a priest.
If you didn’t know it by now, science supports the claims made by Abraham about the Law of Attraction and how it could help revitalize your life from this moment on.
That’s the advice that Abraham offered to a young woman who was called to the stage to question the Spirits about issues she was facing on Saturday. She was among some 15 people who shared the “Hot Seat” at the Renaissance Hotel near Philadelphia’s International Airport for a workshop.
The message resonated with me and I hope everyone of the more than 500 in attendance took it in and will try the 15-minute exercise once a day to see how easier it can be to get in touch with the Source energy within.
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. 
What do you tell a person who wants to know about Buddhism?
What books do you recommend? What authors?
Could I ever be strong enough to let the more tender side of me take over and simply “Let Go“?
We all know how tough it can be to let go of something we’ve been accustomed to all of our lives. You feel like you’re walking off a cliff or jumping out of a plane with no parachute when you consider “letting go.” You’re facing uncertainty, the unknown, the void of a black hole that’s never been explored before. Unexplored by you, that is.
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
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I know that it’s my fault. I walked out on you, believing I could get along without you, without your guidance without your help. Without your Love . . .
The person who had the biggest impact on my life was my second wife, Wendy Wright Contos. 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
A Viet Cong sniper was trying to kill me. Some motherfucker hiding in the trees, the bushes, the triple-canopy jungle had just shot at my platoon. I thought he was shooting randomly, despite the debris from the ground, grassland and other tiny bits of rock that struck me from a bullet’s ricochets.
Contoveros 