Category Archives: Letting Go

At least, no one is shooting at me this time

by contoveros

(See Part One, “Cancer strikes . . .)  

Fear of Dying From Cancer Takes Over Me    

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 of 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.

I never once opened the book I took with me to read on SEPTA’s R-6 rail line connecting Conshohocken with the 30th Street Station of Philadelphia. Nor did I open it when I sat on the bus that took me and several other veterans to the hospital in West Philadelphia. Who cared about reading when you only have so much time left? Who cares about anything in life when you’re facing death?

No Use for Cell Phone During this Trip

Nor did I check any of my e-mails on the cell phone I carried. How many people do you know that can go a full hour, let alone an entire day, without giving in to social media addiction? I know some who turn on their phones before getting out of bed in the morning. They just can’t live without seeing the latest text message or input from a Facebook friend or e-mail contact.

But there I was with no contact with the outside world as I made my way to the oncology ward, sat on an examination bed, and awaited the verdict from the doctor. I meditated as much as I could, hoping to calm the jitters I had all morning. It helps to block out all thoughts. It helps not to think because I usually tend to think the worst in a situation like this.

—————-

That’s it, Michael J. You got your breathing under control. You have been able to let all thoughts drift by without grasping onto them. You’re a blank slate right now. You’re living in the present moment. You’re safe and sound in a hospital office. No one is shooting at you, trying to kill you . . .

 Vietnam War Firefights Recalled 

You know, the greatest benefit of having served in combat is that during the worst times of my adult life, I have always been able to compare it to the firefights I faced while in the Vietnam War. Nothing compares to it. No divorce, no death in the family, no serious illness. Did I just mention illness? Yes, even an illness such as a life-threatening one is cancer. At least I’m not suffering pain at this moment. I’m not hurting. I’m not sniveling like a baby who hasn’t got his way for good health and a long life.

I am simply alive. And I can “be” alive for as long as I keep my mind away from any and all negative aspects of death. And I can feel God by saying, “At least no one is shooting at me!”

Uh oh. Someone just opened the door. It’s Doctor Carter Paulson. She’s smiling. She touches my arm, and I am now set for her pronouncement.      “You’re cancer free,” she says. “We got it all.”

————-

  • No cancer means no chemotherapy . . . no radiation . . . no negative thoughts of an impending death.!

Now what do I do with this second chance I got from this bout with cancer?

What Would You Do?

My book on St. Francis now on amazon.com

by contoveros

Well, I told you my first book would soon appear. And it did.

Just as I went on a cruise in a boat up to the new Frontier of Alaska.

Francis of Assisi is now on sale. It has one error that I found today. It has to do with Esther of the Bible and her relationship with a fellow who was her uncle, but was identified by me as her father. Not bad for a 266-page book, if I do say so myself.

Check it out. It’s called: “Francis of Assisi, A Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty“

Oh yeah. My name doesn’t appear anywhere on the cover. You see, I “discovered” the manuscript, which was actually written by the 13th-century monk, and I arranged for it to be published after it was hidden in an old castle on an island of Greece. It is a novel of a historical book. I think you’ll like it!


I wrote under the name of Francesco DiBernadone, which was the real name of Saint Francis.

Michael j Contos

—————

For a look at the book, click on Francis of Assisi

Contentment: Learning to be Content OK

by contoveros

     “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 →

Ups & downs of life provide me lessons

by contoveros

     “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 that I edited and slightly changed, and can safely say is now mine. Continue reading →

Growing up with Catholic Sisters (Nuns)!

by contoveros

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.”

I never did like Sister Saint Clare, but I did like Sister St. Leonard, even though she had made my brother repeat first grade and was forever marked in God’s permanent record as one of those “left-behind.”

Sister Saint Clare bullied me when she learned I had played hooky. She tried to get me to “squeal” on who I had stayed out of school with. But I never snitched on him, even after she forced me to the brink of the top of the second-floor school stairway and over the steps for a tumble I will never forget. See: Sister Saint Clare knocks me for a loop.

Still Loving my All-Time Favorite Nun

     Sister Josephine Frances was my all-time favorite, even though she smacked me once when I thought it wasn’t right. She had left the classroom and told us not to talk. It was something that hardly anyone followed. At least I didn’t, even though I noticed that most kids read their books.

When she returned, she asked which one of us had talked. I was unafraid. Like I said, I really liked her. She made me proud of my Greek heritage when she taught us in her fourth-grade class about the ancient Greeks and how much our Western World owed to those great men and women from thousands of years ago. I saw myself as one of those who, incidentally, would never tell a lie.

I was one of only a handful — all boys, I seem to recall — who raised our hands in answer to the good sister’s questions. Well, without further ado, she marched up to each and every one of us sitting in one of those wooden chairs with those little wooden desks with an empty hole across the desk-top that once held an ink bottle, and smacked us.

A Smack that Still Reverberates Years Later

I mean, “smacked” us. It was loud. And, it hurt! But not as much as what happened next.

Pure unadulterated shame and embarrassment came over me. For the first time in my life, I felt my face turning red. You see, I had sinned, and the Angel of the Lord descended upon me and struck me with the wrath of God.

It was devastating. Yet, some 50-odd years later, I still hold that holy nun in the highest regard, and I’ve never been afraid of admitting my mistakes. I could have gone the other way. I could have become someone who would lie by simply saying nothing, which I believe many others might have done. And some still do . . .

Truth is the truth, no matter what age you’re confronted with it, I learned back then. I feel Sister Josephine Frances helped me to see that and pass a test of a lifetime.

Ithaca Insights Serve Up Peace & Calm

by contoveros

     

How May I Serve You?

     That’s the key to a happy life, you know. Learning to serve others selflessly with no expectation of a reward other than the knowledge you are doing unto others something you’d want them to do . . . unto everyone else.

      It’s a different version of the Golden Rule, which I always thought had some sort of tit for tat attached. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” is one of the versions I remember growing up in a Christian household. My father was Greek Orthodox, and my mother Catholic. Mom had her way; she was in cahoots with the parish priest, and my dad actually “did unto others” but never saw any of his sons “do unto him” by following the Orthodox path. Well, there are always the grandchildren, right nephews Joe, Michael, and Rocky, and let’s not forget Nick, as well as any we don’t know about who may have entered this country out of wedlock.

Serving Others can Help End Suffering

      No, serving others is just like serving yourself. You want to end all the suffering in your own life, and the best way to start is to turn your focus away from your woes and zero in on all others, all the ones you might have the least bit of contact with or upon, and can do something, even the slightest thing to make them more comfortable, less tense, and feeling that at least one person out of 8 billion really does care.

      I didn’t know it, until “awakening” during a three-day retreat in Ithaca, NY, when the veil of illusion was slowly removed from my eyes and I saw like a Mystic. It’s no big deal. I view things as I believe they should be, not the way they are. My goal in life is to try my best to get others to see things this way, the ideal reality, and not the conventional or illusory way.

     Insight showed me that I have served others one way or another in most of my adult life. It showed in the jobs I held, the positions I sought to take for a “Right Livelihood;” the beliefs I adopted while discarding bits and pieces of what didn’t “feel right” or those I might not be ready to fully adopt at this moment.

Serving as a Printer for Others to Read

     I worked as a printer when I was 18 years old. I studied the trade while in high school, and learned what is called the “offset process.” It has to do with oil and water not mixing and how ink, an oil-based substance, would somehow adhere to another substance. I can’t tell you what waters got to do with it, but I think one washes away the other, and an image that had been burned into a metal plate “grasps” the ink while all mass around the image or “type” is washed away. What is conveyed to paper is what you see: Black Ink on a white background.

      I was pretty good at developing negatives for burning images into plates. I could make a plate with just the right amount of muscle, rubbing the flat metal not to tire myself out. When the plate was completed, my job ended. The plate would be sent to a “pressman” (or woman) who’d adjust it into the large printing presses and run off a couple of hundred thousand copies of something or other. (Actually, I think plates at that time were only good for tens of thousands of copies, but who’s counting?)

     Someone was expected to read the printed matter. A copywriter created a series of words and graphic arts to draw the attention of a reader. (I worked as a copy-writer for a short time and I know I tried to “serve” the consuming public who’d be choosing between one product and another for an acquisition. I also “served” my boss in providing him with the best job I could.)

Starting Off with an Excerpt from a Book 

     (This is an excerpt from the first book I wrote, still unpublished, called “Ithaca Incites Mystical Insights.”)

      Printing has always been a two-way street in my book. You engage in one effort for the benefit of another. Take the patron saint of the printing press, a German fellow named Gutenberg. If it weren’t for him, the Christian bible would never have been distributed so widely, thereby helping all people. (Actually, Western Civilization only. The East was doing pretty well without having to suffer through such growing pains as the “Dark Ages.”)

      I provided a service, and I felt fulfilled in doing my small part.

 

Ithaca insights incite a Mystic to write inspirational illogical idioms!

     I got drafted and served in the military. Yes, of course it counts even if you didn’t “sign up” for service. Us poor kids in urban settings all knew we were going to be drafted unless your dad knew some politician or had money to elaborate how serious your knee or back problem really was. Uh oh. You’re not 4-A and now you can’t be drafted.

      Anyway, I got discharged after serving less than two years, and then I “signed up” or “re-upped” to go to OCS (Officers Candidate School), where I learned to serve my country and whatever else the top brass had ordered me to serve. I went to war, did my thing, and returned home, where I served some mor

Serving other Veterans at Community College

 While in community college, I volunteered to counsel other veterans returning home interested in attending college courses. Who knew whether they were “college material.” You dodged bullets and stepped around land mines; I guess that qualifies you for getting through the obstacle course of higher education.

     Plus, I can show you how Uncle Sam will pay you a certain amount of money each month to help raise you into the Middle Class and make our country a helluva prosperous one! That road generally starts with a good education, something most of the people I grew up with never pursued, perhaps because they were tired of serving others and wanted to focus on themselves. It’s too bad. They might have gained the world, but lost so much of themselves, not to mention missing the boat to happiness.

 Yes, serving others leads to happiness! Ask the Dalai Lama, or the nuns working as hard as Mother Theresa worked in the streets of Calcutta and elsewhere.

So Much Joy Available when You Freely Give 

It is truly “better to give, and not receive,” particularly when it costs so little to bring about such great joy in anther’s life. That joy starts out as a tiny smile that barely breaks through into a smile until the truly needy accepts the small offering and whispers a thank you. Even if you give anonymously as most of us do, we can use our imaginations to “visualize” the reception our gift is greeted with. Sneakers will fit and the poor can give away or throw out the ones filled with holes. That little dress will look great on my 6-year-old; Tommy can play catch with the baseball (or glove); we can have heat in our apartment for another month.

 By visualizing how you’d feel if some benefactor aided you, you can get a thrill of sorts. You live vicariously through gift-giving. You are serving others with no wish to gain something from it except the altruistic feeling and knowledge that you did the right thing. You’re a “Mensch” as my Hebrew friends might point out. It’s another Mitzvah in the long line of Mitzvahs you perform for the glory of a higher being.

 I served as a reporter for a newspaper. I wrote stories that informed people about government, crime, social activities, as well as the weather. It was a true service even though our critics say we writers were simply trying to sell the news so that we could get more advertisers and make lots of money.

————

I found the “service road “ for me leading through the union movement, as I took part in helping to negotiate contracts between the papers’ management and The Newspaper Guild. I felt so pulled to serve others more directly that I took a leave of absence and worked as a union organizer, trying my best to bring the union gospel to non-union newspaper employees all over the Philadelphia area.

 Law School Beckons Me to Serve

That’s when I decided to go to law school. I wanted to lead workers into a world where there’d be little poverty, little economic inequality, and we’d all live happily ever after.

 It didn’t work out that way after getting a D+ in my Labor Law class, forcing me to take that as a sign from God that I should find service elsewhere. And, I did, studying criminal law (where I’d gotten an average a little better than a C+!)

 I worked as a public defender in Philadelphia for 20 years, serving poor people charged with crimes as well as the families who suffered along with their loved ones while seeking a trial or the right sentence to serve for any criminal actions committed.

I got paid, of course. In the meantime, I attended church “services”. I guess the main one getting credit for ‘serving‘ would be the one leading the spiritual activities.

————–

But simply attending a meeting with other Congregationalists provides a service to everyone, including yourself.

Alumni Board and Vet’s Club helps me to Serve

 I served on an alumni board for a community college and became a member of a vets’ club. I got no pay for either activity, and like attending church services, I didn’t expect any. In fact, I seemed to always give at services and to the organizations. So, maybe they don’t really count. After all, I did hope to gain something. Heaven at the church, and friendship and possible job contacts at the others.

 Writing has become my latest and greatest way I know of serving. I write with no pecuniary interest. I’d like others to read this, but even if I am long gone and working on two or more lifetimes after this one, I’d still be happy.

Serving by Way of My Inspirational Writings

 It’s like St. Teresa of Avila said. Even if just one person can gain from what I put on paper, then I have served the Will of God. Not that I am comparing myself to such a humble and compassionate person as the Carmelite nun from the 1550s. It’s her spirit that I have tried to lasso and bring into my corral. Read and be inspired to love another, to give of yourself with no hope of gain, to seek death so that another might live in your place if that is what may be required by the divine Essence, then who am I to deny it?

     Take the last breath from this body if it could serve another; if it could serve the greater purpose of the universe; let a smile be on my face as I look death in the face and ask as boldly as the tough kid from Brewerytown could ask Death:

“What Took You So long?”

Meditate First and Foremost Each Day!

by contoveros

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 →

‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’t’s’ of Radiating Wisdom

by contoveros
 Today’s meditation showed us that we all have a profound and innate wisdom. How have you experienced this in your life? Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you? — Deepak & Oprah 21-day Meditation Experience.

Wisdom Flourishes from Deep Within

As I struggle to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, let me focus instead on what Deepak had quoted William Blake as saying in reference to wisdom. Wisdom is “organized innocence.” What a concept! In order to have or to cultivate wisdom, I know that I must be in awe of something; I must see that thing with wonder, with the eyes of an innocent child.

It is only when I perceive it this way, that is, when I use what Zen Buddhists call my “beginner’s mind,” that I see the true writing on a wall I offered up for its clean slate to be imprinted upon.

Wisdom is not something confined to those growing old. Nor is it only for the professor-types in ivory towers, although we can revere what many tell us because of the learning they achieved and can pass on to us. No, wisdom is something that – I believe – we’re born with . . . We have it inside of us, and one of the few ways that we can tap into it is through meditation.

Very Wise to Experience Things from Within

In other words, I don’t have to have lots of experiences to be wise. I need only to experience things from within and be able to see things from the child’s point of view. Then I can feel the richness in witnessing.

Now, what was that question that I just dodged?

     “Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you?”

I told a young woman, Rita, that our relationship would have to come to an end, and that we had to enjoy it while we were together. We were both married at the time. I’m not proud of it, but we had an affair. I was twenty-three and she was twenty-one or twenty-two. We came together as troubles had developed in both of our relationships at our separate homes.

      We had fun and we grew, sharing ourselves in a way that we couldn’t with our spouses at that time. We both got divorces. She is much quicker than me. That angered her. I guess she felt that I should have joined her upon her break-up with her husband. I did not, for I was Catholic, and I knew instinctively that I would not.

That’s what I meant when I said our relationship was impermanent and that it would not last. Nothing does.

———–

     I guess another time that this occurred was more recently, but it feels like several lifetimes ago. I had predicted to a young woman whom I had fallen in love with that we would only be together for six months. I actually told her in June that we could learn from each other and then finish what we needed to do by December.

No Good in Trying to Cling to a Relationship

That’s exactly what happened too! But this time, I was the one who didn’t want to pay attention to my own advice. I wanted permanence. I wanted to cling to the relationship, to hold onto something that had already ended, but I couldn’t and didn’t want to see that my earlier premonition was correct.

In each case, I was prophetic with the wisdom.

Achieving wisdom and following it, however, are two things I have learned that don’t necessarily come together all the time . . .

Journey Propels Me to the Lower World

by contoveros

   Our Shamanic Journey to the Lower World

I couldn’t wait for the instructor to finish her directions for my latest journey to the lower world. As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt a presence come into my awareness. I could hear my Reiki teacher, Angie, talking in her special “guide’s” voice, and I knew that my good friend Melanie was as attentive as I was the first time this Shamanic guide talked me into seeing a new reality, a new world.

     Melanie sat on the couch to my right. We had already shared our brief journeys into the Middle World, the one that exists now on this plane. We were joyous to discover we both pictured the bright, bold red cardinal as our favorite animal. On top of that, however, red foxes had approached us as spirit guides.

     Melanie, who has had to struggle as a caregiver for her father, who passed away slightly more than a year ago, had only recently placed her grandmother into a nursing home when Melanie had struck bottom and sought help to save herself from drowning. Several of her father’s dearest friends interceded and rescued Melanie, ushering the grandmother into an emergency entrance of a nearby assisted living facility.

  • (As some of you might be aware, I placed my spouse in a nursing home after struggling with “care-giver burnout.” in January of 2013, following a lengthy trial that started Sept. 15, 2006.)

    Foxes Act as Guides in the Lower World

Melanie’s fox led her to a wolf, and took off, leaving the poor child without saying goodbye. On awakening from this journey, she felt grief occupying her Throat Chakra and parts of her psyche.

     My fox was a “wanderer,” helping a vixen here, and a horse there, while never staying in one place too long before seeking some new adventure, some new mystical experience wherever his heart would take him.

     But my visit to the Lower World was something I never expected, and it goes to show you that when you have “no expectations,” someone’s will that you’re placing your own will in does not disappoint you.

  • (This is an excerpt from a forthcoming Contoveros book on Reiki to be published next year!)

   Mystical Creature Appears Subconsciously

I didn’t mean to begin my journey as soon as my eyes closed. But a creature from a previous dream entered my consciousness. I had dreamed of this wonderful being some three years ago when writing down all of my dreams religiously over a 6-week period. In the dream, a figure much like the mythical “Puff the Magic Dragon” had visited me. But he appeared as no fictional character, but one our earth had seen hundreds of thousands of years ago.

     My totem for this latest journey was none other than “Little Foot,” the long-neck dinosaur, also known as a Brontosaurus as well as an Apatosaurus. He took me swimming and diving in the ocean as I held onto him and rode him bareback. In my dream, I clung to this, the largest of all the prehistoric animals, as he made his way into the water and then out of it, somehow climbing into the air as if he could fly.

    Dinosaur in Dream Becomes Best Friend

We became airborne for just a short time before submerging again and splashing in the refreshing water, giggling and laughing as the best of friends, man and beast, kids at heart.

     There was no time for surface contacts, however. As Angie continued to softly speak to me and Mel, I plunged into the water. It was a clear, fresh, and bubbling area of water. My dinosaur friend was fully in charge. I knew not where we were headed, but felt I was on another adventure.      

     Down and down, we went, my eyes wide open and hair wildly drifting from one side to the other as we would twist and turn around the sea structures and sea animals, none of which lingered for long in our sights. We passed coral and rock formations and hundreds of different colored fish, all seemingly aware of our visit to their part of the world.

Domed City Made of Gold Beckons to Me

     Too soon, we slowed as the dinosaur pulled up straight, ending what seemed like hours of descent. There, just below me, was a domed city. It was all in gold. It sparkled and shone in the air that was trapped inside this huge globe-like, clear structure. Our view was unobstructed. I saw streets and pavements, as well as houses of various sizes, shapes, and widths.

     But there were no people. The city seemed to have been there for the longest of times, existing long before civilization as we know it came into being. It had an air of wisdom and knowledge about it, as if the basic rocks, wood, stones, and trees were alive and full of answers to anyone who could pose the right question to them.

     I wanted to enter. So did my traveling companion. But no sooner had we come into the presence of this magnificent city, we knew it was time to go.

     I don’t remember much after this. A walrus with long tusks came into our vision. “Goo-goo-achoo,” I felt like singing to him in the language of the Beatles. He, too, was wise. Maybe he was the doorman or watchman at the entrance to the “globed city” beneath the sea.

Walrus Guides Me to a Pool of Sharks

     He guided us away from the city and upwards toward the waterway above. Soon, he too left us on our own. But not for long, we were then joined by a group of professional sharks. I felt they were more professional than I thought it. They were of the lawyer class of sharks. Very efficient, very logical, and very uncaring for anything but their targeted prey.

     I enjoyed their company and just as we were about to swap war stories of courtroom intrigue and shenanigans, I heard drumming in the far distance. The thumping drew my attention, and it pulled me away from the sharks, the water, and my good friend the dinosaur. I re-entered the land of “Now. “Upon describing my vision, Angie said I had journeyed to the Lost City of Atlantis, the magical land spoken of by Plato, the Greek philosopher who always dealt with facts, never fiction.

     Was he calling me to the city? Were my father’s ancestors somehow interceding with the powers of Poseidon to gain me entrance to this wonder or wonders? Who knows. Maybe more will follow in my next Shamanic Journey.

Getting a Good Last Laugh is so Laudable

by contoveros

Despite always having a smile on my lips and a laugh at my tongue, I found it hard to think of anything to write about for the latest meditation round for Oprah and Deepak. That is, until I picked up my son at work this evening and we joked and laughed until I almost did you know what in my pants. It hurt so much that I started crying, that’s how good it was and how great it felt to just let it all come out in front of one of his 22-year-old buddies and our 25-year-old female traveling companion.

Continue reading →

Peace Found Deep Inside the Vietnam War

by contoveros
(Part 1 of 2)
Recall a time when you felt calm and peaceful, even though the circumstances were not peaceful. Write down a description of that event, and describe how you were able to be calm in that situation. What was the source of this peacefulness if it didn’t come from outside? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)

     I had led my platoon in Vietnam for several months. We had encountered several firefights, but no one was killed or injured, thank God. But you never knew what the next day would bring, and so we were on edge, on the ready, so to speak, for anything that might have endangered us.

     And then one day, I lead one of my two squads into an area where we came across a humongous crater that had been carved in the earth. I don’t know what kind of bomb had created such a massive hole. It looked as if it had been done several years before the ten or twelve guys I was leading had approached it and, circling it, decided to make our overnight “camp” there.

Calm and Relaxing Vibrations Greet Soldier

     It was broad daylight, however, when we got to it, and there were still several hours of light left. I’ll tell you I have never felt so much peace as I did when settling in at that moment. I don’t know what it was that gave off such calm and relaxing vibrations. Perhaps there had been a monastery or some sort of temple there at one time.

     Perhaps spirits from those prayers offered up to whatever gods existed at their time were still lingering in the vicinity.

peace.jpg

Peace of God found in the middle of the Vietnam War for some lucky Grunts

———————–

I felt secure and comfortable. I felt I could rest and not worry about any type of attack, even though we didn’t let down our watch through the evening and overnight. It just seemed as if God had gathered us in his arms and was protecting us.

I hadn’t felt the Presence of God since I was twelve years old. I didn’t recognize it as a “presence” until recently, when I reflected on the more peaceful times in my life and determined that, strangely enough, it was right smack in the middle of a war.

Peace Provided for all of God’s Creatures

The peace came from within but also from the birds and critters that had returned to what must have been a burned-out shell shortly after the massive explosion. Bushes and small trees had started to grow along the sides of the crater. There weren’t that many flowers, but the foliage was pleasant to look at and comforting to believe it could conceal us from outside forces. Maybe it did.

And maybe that is what peace is all about, being able to go within, protected from outside forces.

— Michael J Contos, former US Army lieutenant, responding to meditation question posed.

(For part 2, please see: https://contoveros.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/explosion-shatters-peace-but-calm-prevails/)

(For more on meditation see Chopra Center Meditation Experience)

NaNoWriMo done in 30 days, thank God

by contoveros

I just finished writing 73,000 words about Francesco, the young man from Assisi who overcame post-traumatic stress from battles, as well as a year-long imprisonment, before being ransomed by his rich mercantile father. Continue reading →

Love notes discovered from a distant past

by contoveros

     Him: God, I miss being in love. I guess I could say I miss you.
You helped me tap into the feelings I usually only get with Shekinah, what the Kabbalah says is the feminine side of the divine. She’ll always be with me, and I see now you simply took her place for a little while here on Earth. Love is still there, but only redirected now.
Thanks. Continue reading →

Don’t eat all the hummus, Michael J

by contoveros

To      Michael J

From Melanie K

     I had such a nice night. My favorite part was sitting outside talking on the bench. Who knew we would be together in such a situation?
    • the Lovely Garden beside a Thai Buddhist Temple 
    • the Freshness of Post-Meditation
    • the Purity of Post-Meditation
    • the High of Talking Dharma with a New Friend, Luke 
    • Surrounded by Bonsai Trees Continue reading →

A Call of Love to the Goddess Shekinah

by contoveros

   

     I’ve been away from you for less than 4 hours, and I can’t stand it. I miss you.

     What has come over me? I get so lonely when I’m not with you, and feel such a shallow emptiness. You are so filling that I don’t really take notice of your presence until your presence is gone. My tank runs out of gas, it voids itself of all energy, and the only thing I have left to get me through is the memory of the two of us together and how we will reunite tomorrow.

     But tomorrow is so long away. I don’t think I’ll make it through the night after having spent the last three days in the sunshine and in the rain, marching to the beat of our own reality, our own world created with the mingling of our breath, our souls, our mutual loving touches.

Manfesting Joy Within Each Other

Let me rest. That’s all I can do. Rest up and hope the hours go by so swiftly. Think of me when you get a moment. Please keep me in your mind’s eye when you see something that might remind you of our time together and the joy that we helped to manifest in each other.

     Let these poor, insignificant words of my heartfelt yearning find you happy and content while away from me and remind you of your conquest, your victory, your winning of my heart. 

     You had my heart the moment you tapped me on the shoulder in the Temple of Love and asked where we could find Enlightenment. You my dear, provided the light to shine through my soul’s darkness and to remind me of a life of purpose and meaning by simply being able to love unconditionally once again.

     Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Angels appear when disbelief is suspended

by contoveros

     A friend of mine is “into” Angels. “Suspend your disbelief,” he told me, explaining how belief in angels re-materialized into his life recently. I knew at that moment that the resistance he had spoken of was puffing out its chest and stepping between me and the computer screen where his words appeared.

(Written by Melanie Kriebel)

Continue reading →

‘Spiritual Love Flows On’, Says the Maiden

by contoveros
(Continued from What’s next for love’s mysterious ways?)

The Maiden of Athena to the Foolish Knight:

Is this not, yet another spiritual practice for you?

 For me too.

Continue reading →

What’s next for love’s mysterious ways?

by contoveros

The Maiden: I felt quite empty for the last few days, as if I was waiting for something to fill me up, elevate me to a passionate state. I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like this for a prolonged amount of time…I’m wondering what’s coming next.

 The Foolish Knight: You ask, “What’s next”?  

     I don’t know. I, too, feel empty. I want to end my activities and just stay inside myself. I hurt. And, I know why I hurt. It stems from a desire I have that is overcoming all of my waking hours. I escape by disciplining myself to think of nothing. You see, my mind is creating thoughts that seem to ruin my well-being. It’s taking away most of the happiness I have discovered on this path.

    I feel tortured. And, I know that I am torturing myself.

Love Can Always Be Found Within

     God, why does love hurt so much? I wanted it so badly and prayed for it, and the Almighty granted my wish. It had been so long since I felt such bliss and joy. I found it outside of myself and in another, but I should have known that it had been hidden within me all the time. But, like a fool who can understand love from an intellectual, book-learning experience, I cannot, for the life of me, understand it from where it counts the most, my heart, and from my soul.

     This is a destructive love I experience. I long to be in the presence of love, and I count the hours before we commingle and commune. But a sliver of doubt has developed.

     A toxic, invisible ether has begun to envelop me. I evaded it as much as I could, but its poison seeped into my mind, creating a fear of losing the love. It frightened me. Here I am, professing to be a spiritual warrior who can’t even protect against the smallest of negative thoughts, negative thinking, negative fixations.

     And that is what has gotten me in its grasp. A negative fixation that no love can ever really last. Once you grow comfortable with Love’s security, the blanket covering you seems to shrink. At least that’s the way I felt the past few horrible days.

Unknowing Ways of Love’s Ins & Outs

     I ask you, “What good is love if you always need a reassurance of that love”? Can a person not only feel love, but come to know it will always “be there?” That the love will not fade or get directed elsewhere by the whim of someone other’s looks, charm, or witty take on the true meaning of life and death?

     I want to give it up. Here, take away this love. Take away the anguish my doubts cause me. I want the peace and calm I dreamt love would provide, not the turbulent and stormy nightmare a sick and love-starved child like me conjures out of seemingly nothing.

     What’s next? I really don’t know. Know someone good at performing a lobotomy?

(For the Maiden of Athena’s Wise Response, See:

     Spiritual Love Flows On, says the Maiden.

You’ve been Called; now Choose up Sides

by contoveros

Am I among the “Chosen?” Will I be one of those who make the “cutoff” at the end when the proverbial bill finally gets to be paid?

I don’t know. If you had asked me some five years ago, I’d tell you to hit the road, Jack. I’m not into any of that Doomsday Stuff. The so-called “Chosen People” were the Jews, right? Look what happened to them.

And don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses folks believe that a couple of hundred thousand of them will disappear from the earth at the time of the Rapture? And what about some old-fashioned Presbyterians? Didn’t Calvin or one of their leaders claim to be among the chosen few?

I’d tell you that this is the stuff that kooks dream up for superstitious old ladies and men who have nothing better to do than face their own mortality, hoping they could miraculously get to Heaven if they just turned their lives around in the last years of their lives. They’ll believe in anything or anyone that could offer them salvation with a money-back guarantee!

Are You ‘Squandering Your Life?’

But something happened to me. I felt like I got hit upside the head with a spiritual sledgehammer from some animated cartoon. I heard a voice ask me if I was ‘squandering away my life,” and it scared the hell out of me. I looked at the world around me and saw that nothing had “staying power.” I’d have fun and get my kicks from the old standbys: wine, women, and songs.

But they held no meaning anymore. I’d drunk too much wine, my wife fell down the steps and suffered a traumatic brain injury, leaving me nothing but sad songs of days gone by to sing about. I hit bottom and found there was nothing on this planet that could inspire me to get my butt off the ground, and my head outta my butt.

I got the call. I got the spiritual call. And, more importantly, I answered that call. And, I’ve been seeking answers ever since, sharing some tidbits of crazy wisdom with people I feel might be of like mind and what I call a “what-the-hell-do-I-have-to-lose” desperation.

You Could Be One of the Spiritually Chosen

If you’ve read this far, you might be one of ‘em. The Chosen, that is. You don’t think you got to this point in your life on your own, do you? You were knocked to the ground on purpose. You were forced to “Call on a Resource” you thought had given up on your wretched personhood. You could either sink into major depression, drugs, and/or the negative lifestyle you had led, or let go.

You let go, didn’t you? Just as I had to, with no assurance that tomorrow would be any more secure or stable as today had turned out to be.

I had learned to take a step without moving my foot, as Rumi once suggested. I could only do it by completely surrendering my old self, the ego-self that controlled my life and got me on a bridge to nowhere with no guide to help navigate away from that dead-end.

Admit You Need Help in ‘Letting Go’

It was in the process of “letting go” that I discovered a path similar to the one you’re walking. We could never have reached this point without first humbling ourselves and admitting we needed help. We needed something the world couldn’t provide, and so we looked beyond this world. We’d be ridiculed, barely tolerated, and our sanity questioned as even well-intentioned family and friends would whisper about our loved one finally going off the deep end.

    Yes. I Jumped.

I removed myself from a reality that focuses only on the material, that judges you only by your successes and the riches you’ve acquired, the medals you gained, the reputation you so carefully strove to keep up. None of this meant anything anymore. I wanted the freedom to simply “BE.”

I needed the Divine in, and of, the Cosmos to become my dearest lover, my comforting parent, my faithful friend. I found all of these – this trinity of engaging partners – through a sincere and contrite prayer, and the trust that the prayer would be answered. That you and I could grow into our purpose for, and in, life by giving up our will for the Will of God; by becoming corrected as prayed for by Kabbalists; by celebrating like a laughing Buddhist monk when he realizes Karma has finally ripened for him to always act in his Buddha nature.

Your Chosen Team Just Can’t Lose

I got picked to play on a team that can’t lose. What are you waiting for? You can join me by simply leaving your “self” outside the playground. You’ve been chosen! Now, help others you know who could practice with us in this game.

Universal Love grants me the touch of love

by contoveros

   

     I wanted so much to write about your soft, careful touch on my arms and my hands. How you slide your fingers ever so meticulously over the outer parts of me, teasing a sensation to come forth, to grow from the inside out, knowing all along your touch is the Touch of Love.

     Your touch is the touch of a mother on baby’s soft back side, the comforting touch of her when the child later stumbles and cuts his or her knee, the firm touch to the face and chin directing that child’s head toward your loving eyes and stern expression, while saying, “Listen: You are good, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

Your Touch is to Die For

     Now.

     Not in some future, but this very moment as I recall it in all its sweetness.

     I recall the past touch as if it just occurred and did not actually happen some  time ago.     

     It is one long present moment that I think of when I recall this touch of yours.

     It makes me want to use my appendage to humbly try to bring a small pleasure to you, my beautiful child. “My Dearest One.”

Calling Out to My Dearest One! 

     May I call you that? “Dearest!” “My Dearest.” You are so dear to me, the dearest. For you are the closest to my heart than anyone, save the Creator who brought you into my presence, into my arms, and into my very being!

     When I touch you, I want you to feel love over every inch I hope to slowly move the fingertips, praying that I too can awaken in you the softer side of love and caring.

     Trust me.

     Please believe me You can trust again. I won’t hurt you. Not in this moment.

     I will not harm you. For, I am Love. You are Love. We are love together. And in the name of all love that has ever been and ever will be you know that I am yours and you’re mine right now.

  Divine Possession Now Shared by Us

     It’s a Divine Possession we share, formed from an internal pure and clear light of understanding and wisdom. And joy, let’s not forget the bliss of joy that sets us apart from any and all other attractions by something less divine than the perpetual, primordial, infinite love of the Universe.

     It is a Divine Love that we tap into when we give all of ourselves so that the other person might live in love.

It is pure, unselfish. It is what Soul Mates are made of and from. And, it started with the first magical, mystical touch!

I Find my True Nature when Not Looking

by contoveros

When you touch that part of me that has never been touched, a dormant thing erupts.

I am observing this thing for the first time.

Did it exist inside of me or did you put it there when I wasn’t looking?

When I noticed it, it hid behind my ear. I tried to find it, put a name to it, and store it in a folder where everything is orderly and safe. It wouldn’t go.

It was quick like a fox, creeping down my left arm while I examined my right, hiding under my knee when I thought I felt it brush the side of my face.

I am barren without it, yet all the happier to have seen it, if only for such a brief time not long enough even to know what to call it.

— Melanie Kriebel 2013

Four Truths to Enoble the Strongest Mind

by contoveros

     Sometimes the only way for me to understand something is to try to put it into my own words. Particularly, if I want to memorize or “imprint” something so that I can keep it near and dear to me, like an inspirational poem or saying I still remember from my earliest days.

     And so, thanks to the kindness of WordPress, I will use my meager intellect to place into words something my heart has tried to understand and permit to grow from one lifetime to another. It is the Four Truths that can enable those noble among us to overcome what is wrong in our lives, and we can set things right.

     The First is the basic truth that there is much of life that is plainly unsatisfactory.

     I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I sometimes feel an uncomfortableness, an irritation that goes away temporarily, but returns too soon, too often. Some people call it “suffering.” They say, “There is suffering.”

Not Getting Satisfaction is True Suffering

     Wise men and women thousands of years ago called the suffering “Dukkha,” a Sanskrit word which roughly means “unsatisfactory,” or better yet, “incapable of satisfying.” I liken its meaning to the old Rolling Stones song of the 1960s, with the words by Mick Jagger screaming his truth to the world:

“I . . . Can’t . . . Get . . . No . . . Satisfaction.“

     Suffering and dukkha can be understood.

     Once I achieve this, I can say I understand suffering and dukkha.

     The Second Truth is that there is a Cause for this dukkha, and that is attachment to desires.

     Desires in and of themselves are all right. It’s my clinging to them at all costs that causes the harm, the dissatisfaction, or suffering. Desires can be let go of. When this happens, I can say I have let go of desires.

Noble Truths Open Door to the ‘Middle Way’

     The Third Noble Truth is that there can be a “cessation” of suffering or feeling unsatisfied.

     This cessation can be realized. Once I have experienced this cessation, I can say that I have fully realized it.

     That leads me to the Fourth Noble Truth, and that is that suffering and its cause can end if I follow a certain path.

     That path is called the “Middle Way” between the extremes of pain and pleasure. I can aspire to follow 8 guidelines, called by some sages as the “Eight-Fold Path.” The first two “practices” call for wisdom, while the next three deal with a form of morality, and the third group, concentration.

     I can develop wisdom through understanding, the right understanding of the way things are, and not the way my unenlightened mind usually sees them. It helps me to always have the right attitude, or right intention toward things, events, and what scientists call phenomena.

Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood

     As far as morality goes, I should simply have “Right Speech,” “Right Action,” and “Right Livelihood.” Don’t curse too much, don’t slander anyone, don’t lie or gossip. Act upon the maxim that whatever you do in life, you are approving everyone else to do, according to Emmanuel Kant, one of my favorite philosophers, I recall from my college days. It’s the same action that Jesus said: “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.”

     And right livelihood means that I should be careful in choosing a career that doesn’t involve gun-running, moonshining, or trading nuclear secrets to terrorists. Don’t work in a field that could endanger or kill some being, man or beast.

     The next three deal with the focus and reflection of life, and how we can enable the noble truths to act within us and to us.

Use Your

“Joyful Effort“

in

All Endeavors.

Meditate.

Concentrate.

          All will help uncover insight from within. You can use whatever words you like or feel comfortable with.

     Use mine if they help. I got them from others whose purpose in life was, and still is, to help bring a certain enlightenment to everybody while we are here, just being the loving kindness and compassion we want for everybody.

Sweat Lodge Reveals many Creative Spirits

by contoveros

     It took several hours for the effects of the Sweat Lodge ceremony to kick in, but when it did, I realized the control I always thought I needed was not in my hands, but in what the Greeks called the Fates; the Christians, God; and the Buddhists, Karma.

     A Divine source, referred to by some as the “Force,” the Divine Feminine, the Creator, has dealt a hand to play with our own free will. We get to choose which cards to keep and the ones to discard. By standing pat or by seeking new ones to “change our luck” or to improve our hand, we cast our lot to the future. None of us expects to lose or to face tragedy or a financial crisis. We hope for improvement, to enrich ourselves through our card-playing skills and years of studying the game of life.

     In the end, the winner is not necessarily the one who drew the highest hand – a royal straight flush versus a pair of kings and deuces. It is the player that can place the bet, and deal with the loss or win with equanimity, that emerges the victor. There is no win, there is no loss. There is just an awareness of the game and how to view it from a state of grace, the right frame of mind, the right attitude. All disappointments arise and end.

All Things Must Have a Beginning and an End

     All roller-coaster thrills must end. In understanding that everything that comes into my existence must someday leave, I can live with its impermanent nature more easily. Treat it the same whether it is good or bad, foul or fresh, holy or unholy. The moment of pleasure and the moment of dissatisfaction will pass. Each will arise and reach its crescendo of joy or sadness, and then each will fall, dissipating and returning from whence it came, leaving naught but a memory we can choose to relive or to drop if similar conditions arise to trigger its recall later.

     None of this was clear when the sweat poured out of me as 10 men and women crawled on hands and knees into the Sweat Lodge outside of Pottstown, PA. We took part in a ceremony honoring the “Great Spirit,” while offering prayers to the four corners of the earth and beyond. We sweated as the lodge leader spread bits of sage, tobacco, and other herbs onto the red-hot coals, causing an eruption of tiny flames that shot upwards and out of the stones but remained safely in a pit dug earlier to contain a total of some 15 hot, glowing rocks.

Prayers Offered for All Directions in the Lodge

     Each one had been baked in a much bigger pit built a slight distance outside of the lodge, where a stone-bearer had been heating them over a slow-burning fire for several hours. Two to four rocks were requested for each “sweat,” or prayerful focus in a given direction. We offered three prayers each for the West, the South, and the North.

     Then just as the sweat seemed to be unbearable for the likes of me, the number of prayers for the East increased to five, six, seven, eight, and beyond . . .  I lowered my head to the floor of the lodge, taking in the cooler air and praying a silent prayer that all the prayers would stop so that I could get the hell out of there!

     The prayers did stop, and we offered a blanket thanksgiving for all. I believe, however, that my silent prayer even helped to cleanse and purify me, removing and burning away the hellish traces of lower, base nature.

Did Not Favor Born-Again Christians

     Hours later, I revolted against a group of Born-Again Christians. All of them were what I called “lily whites.” The men wore handsomely tailored suits, and the women gorgeous dresses with just the right amount of jewelry. All appeared with the greatest tans that money and lots of free time at the beach could offer.

     “I don’t belong here,” I cried to my partner in crime, Melanie, a young Hispanic woman whose mother was raised in Colombia and passed on the natural shade of tan we ethnic types have acquired — her from South America, and me from the southern European countries like my father’s Greek homeland. She had left the sweat lodge and agreed to go with me on this next leg of my spiritual journey

     “They’re too white for me,” I said, pointing at their pale faces, their blonde heads, and the white hairs of their elderly wise ones. “I haven’t seen one Black,” I added. “We’re their token brown-skinned people.” Eventually, she helped me to overcome my resistance, and we entered the church even though Melanie was still a little wet from swimming in the pool after the sweat and unable to change out of the bra and other underthings that had gotten soaked!

Listening to the Performance of a Friend’s Daughter 

     There we were. Two “Recovering” Catholics, walking into the Valley Forge Baptist Church to take in the solo performance of the daughter of dear retired friends I had made while breakfasting at an IKEA restaurant in Conshohocken. They waved to us, and Melanie and I parted the sea of white folks and sat in a pew behind the proud parents. Their daughter played divinely, and despite an apparent ban against applauding in such a refined church of God, the audience cheered her and I whistled as loudly as the most boisterous fan at a Phillies/Mets game.

     A wonderful choir next offered every one the Sound of Angels. That was followed by a group of teens who had recently attended a church-sponsored camp in North Carolina who explained to the thousands of congregational members how Christ had entered into their lives and changed them forever. Each boy reminded me of a miniature “preacher-in-training” with the fervor of zealot for God, while the girls talked of the gentler side of a divine forgiveness, unconditional love, and spiritual camaraderie. Then Satan raised his ugly head.

Devil-like Preacher Wants Only Christian Music

     No, Lucifer made no appearance, although one of the adult preachers brought up his name while chastising the youth for listening to the foulest of foul music provided in the world today. He asked for money to develop Christian music as an alternative to evil sounds my generation had been warned against when Ed Sullivan chose not to show Elvis Presley’s lower parts on national television and “race songs” — those performed by Black artists and Doo Wop groups years ago got banned in Boston.

     I couldn’t wait to escape, bid farewell to the lovely white-haired couple who invited us, and put a distance between them and my sinful self. It was while I was drinking water in my car and reflecting on the day’s events that divine insight struck me like the proverbial bolt of lightning.

God and the Divine Spirit of the Cosmos are the same one we all talk about, but we use different     languages to praise and worship. He or she is the clear light, the Buddha Nature existing in all that we can tap into when we want to live a life that Jesus lived, or that Mohammed said was possible if we but give up our will and let a more powerful Will control the major part of our lives. Yes, we still have free choice, free will.

Look for Shekinah, the Feminine Side of God

     But we know where our internal moral compass is directing us to go. It tells us what is good or bad at the moment and that all we need do is seek the stillness and silence where a “Shekinah” — what the Hebrew language calls the “Feminine Side of God” — dwells. She is always available to guide us. Seek her out, this great spirit, this energy, this Great Vibration, and give up all resistance.
     You’ll find out you can do it with no sweat, and with no loss of anything God hadn’t planned for your personal purpose in life.

Living ‘mind-less-ly’ in the present moment

by contoveros

I am a shapeshifter. I’ve developed the ability over the past five years to shift from one form to another by simply manipulating my mind to do the bidding of my higher self. 

You see, there are two of “me” inside of this shell of a body. There’s the “me” created by my ego, also known as “my mind,” and there’s also the “non-me,” the one that surfaces when the mind is gone. It is this entity, one that is pure consciousness, that takes over when the mind stops all of its thought processes.

The true spirit or energy mass that’s within me is always there, always in the present. I can’t connect to it when that part of “me” is dominant. I fail to be aware of the energy, the spirit’s existence. By halting and stopping my thoughts, however, the consciousness “arises” and takes over. Forms of all shapes and sizes come into focus. A flower, a tree . . . the wind on my face . . . the smell of garlic . . . the softness of a woman’s hand across my brow.

Our Consciousness Exists This Very Moment

If consciousness did not exist in the present, none of these forms would exist either. Think about it! If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Well, we know you have two parts to such an auditory phenomenon. If there is no one to hear sound, then you cannot have sound. If your consciousness is not present, then you cannot have . . . well, fill in the blank.

And, if your consciousness is always being placed on hold by the mind that always wants to think up reasons, excuses and answers to something for the future or from the past, then the forms that exist in front of our eyes, within the earshot of our hearing, the taste of the mouth, the smell of the nose, the touch of a hand, then how can we say they truly exist? Yes, a flower will appear to our senses, but our thoughts will not include its beauty, its texture, its “poetic-ness,” so to speak.

Fear, anxiety, and depression cannot exist in the present without the support, nay, perhaps the “leading role” played by the mind. Just think. You stop thinking, and you stop the worry, the confusion, the lack of wholesome goodness inside of you. Without your mind insisting that you continually think of something, that thing will eventually disappear, diminish, or slide off the radar screen.

Consciousness Arises in the Present Moment

All you need to do is place your awareness like a laser beam onto one of your five senses. Focus as if your life depended on it. Life in the present moment does depend on you living in the present, sans thoughts of any kind, sans the emotions that go with the thoughts, whether we like them or not. Thoughts trap us, entice us to cling to them, to always be grasping for their contents, their so-called can’t-live-without-them ideas, concepts, and a whatnot or two.

So, I shape shift. I will my inner being to focus on my breath, my five senses, and to stay fixed there for as long as it takes for the mind to quiet down, come to rest, and hibernate. The present opens to me like a flower. I “shape” the moment like the observer shaping reality in a particle/wave shape-shifting quantum physics laboratory experiment.

Now, I am more in the moment than I have ever been, with thoughts of the moment, which, incidentally, never really existed.

Can’t Always Think You’re in the Moment

You can’t “think” of the moment, the present. You lose it as soon as you call forth the idea. By the time it is “formed,” time has passed you by. The present has long gone. You’re someplace other than that present moment when your mind thought it could pin the present down to the now. Now is gone from the mind’s eye, as soon as the mind starts to eye it through the thought process.

It’s the “thought-less process” you need to be in and recognize the present. You have to “feel” it, experience it, live it. You’ll love it more and more as you return to it.

Just think about it. Now, stop. Be it. Be in the now right now.

Breathing to ‘Right Self’ is a Lifetime Job

by contoveros
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To ‘be or not to be’ Gay and in Love again

by contoveros

     Deborah loved with a love that was more than a love. Cupid’s arrow struck her just as a choir of angels sang and a special cherub played the most beautiful music in all the land over an ancient lyre, the same instrument that a shepherd boy named David once played to honor the God of the Psalms. 

She loved Fran with all her heart, her mind, and her soul. And she wanted to shout it out to the whole world that there was a love that would never end, never grow old, never die. She needn’t say a word, however. Her devotion and adoring demeanor spoke volumes to those of us meeting the lucky couple for the first time in Philadelphia, my City of Brotherly Love, on Friday night, the summer solstice.

Love shone all around Deborah when she spoke of Fran, and a well-disguised, shy girl from within her nearly blushed as her lover looked deep into her eyes to acknowledge an almost palpable affection. Light from a thousand stars sparkled from their mutual smile, their caressing eyes, their in-tune and synchronized hearts, which seemed to beat as one.

Saring Unconditional Love with Each Other

Taking her hand, Fran walked alongside this beauty of a woman, offering a silent prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving step by step through the long summer night, the longest night of the couple’s young lives. Too soon, they disappeared from view, leaving behind just a memory and an image of what any one of us would give a million dollars to have: the unconditional love of another human being, another man, another woman, even for but one moment of a gay, rich life.

Here’s to Deborah and Francesca. Two women in love. True Love among true lovers, if you have ever seen it in this or any other lifetime!

* * * *

     They were a sight to see and to glorify when you need to recall what love could be, and is, all about. The purest emotion God created for His creatures to share with Him and with one another, sans color, creed, national origin, or sexual orientation. Love has always been color-blind and gender-neutral for the young and old, the sick and the well, the poor and the not-so-poor; even for a 64-year-old whose soul mate just turns out to be a 21-year-old.

Love has triumphed in our world. It’s exploded into space, signally all the many universes that Planet Earth will allow all love to flourish from whatever source or sex it manifests.

Okay to Love and Marry, says Supreme Court

Today, I am Gay. Today, all of us are as Gay as we would like to be or not to be. That is the question the US Supreme Court answered in a shout to the entire world that all who love will never be prosecuted or persecuted for whom they choose to fall in love.

I feel elated and so happy for those who have hidden themselves for far too long. We, society, could not see until now that love is not confined to procreation. It can’t be regulated and legalized only to those wearing opposite types of clothes or having genital differences. Love arises in all of God’s children, no matter how dissimilar one person might be to you or to me.

————-

Fall in Love, Everyone.

Fall for anyone you like. Fall in love again with someone you don’t even like but stay together for the sake of the children. It’s legal. It’s holy. It’s fun!

It’s as gay as gay can be, and it’s all free for you to be or not to be.

Divine Mother, Spare the Fem-in-’em Now

by contoveros

Take ’em. Break ’em. Make ’em.

     O Grand Master, it is your females that will save this species. It is through their power, their innate abilities, that man will be saved. Compassion and love must rule the day again. And power must be crushed by the mallet of humility before any dare sends another child into war that old men dream of winning as if playing games of adolescent ruffians. 

     Ouch! Give up my manhood? Turn in my boxing gloves, my rifle, my drink? What will I become when I grow up? Who will I protect, gather food for, “sexualize” in thoughts actions and deeds my every waking minute?

Divine Mother

Be Still and Know that I Am God

You will bow and respect for evermore your Divine Mother forevermore. I will take your life away as quickly and as surely as I have given it to you. Obey this: Be Still and Know that I Am God.

     I need your strength to build, not tear down; to give hope and not despair; to “fight” without lifting a fist but by raising your spirit so mightily it will dash to pieces the most formidable enemy your kind has ever faced.

     Give me your blood in the fields of corn and rice, not the fields of battles. 

                                                 (See Divine Mother)

————-

Skillful Means Needed for Gentle Wisdom

     Shed tears not for fallen comrades but for the joy in conquering obscurations you never thought could be overcome.

     March proudly waving flags of festive, holiday colors to announce a new day is here, and that you will never return to the days of old guts and glory.

     You will thrive only when realizing that skillful means discerned with honest and gentle wisdom must be employed in all human endeavors.

     Love, tolerate, and above all, learn patience as the antidote to all the poisons your kind has been exposed to. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late.

     I will spare man, but only if he spares the feminine within himself.

Writing Tomorrow of Love You Feel Today

by contoveros

Why write of an experience, when you can experience it?

There’ll be time enough for writing when the chapter ends and a new one begins at the stroke of the pen.

Live now.

Live in the present.

Love now.

Love in the presence . . .

Write with the love you become tomorrow.

Truly Living May Just Be Worth Dying For

by contoveros

The thought of going to prison never bothered me. I’d survive and flourish behind bars, where I’d have more than enough time to reflect and write which I have found is my true love in life.

No, I could kill without worrying about the consequences. It would be my first offense. I am certified as a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I don’t see any judge or jury putting me to death for the crime.

All of this went through my mind when I was waiting at the train platform, and a rather tall, white guy walked in front of me. I was standing near the tracks. I was close enough and in line with others standing on either side of me that I never thought someone could make their way between me and the tracks. But the man did. He walked around me. He stood directly in front of me. No one else stood that close. I recall thinking how totally inappropriate and rude his actions were.

That’s when I Planned to Kill Him. 

I know how to kill, having been trained in the infantry and as a parachutist who learned not to care about pain. I got used to it, and bared up under it so many times, it became almost second nature to welcome it during a new and challenging task. Like murder.

No, I don’t know any Kung Fu or any martial arts. But I could break the man’s neck from behind. And, if that failed, I would wrestle him to the ground and die before letting him get up as I smashed his head again and again on the platform, caring not a whit about the mess I’d make. I’m strong. More importantly, I’m strong-willed.

Breaking an unwritten Rule is Dishonorable

     He deserved to die, I rationalized and actually saw myself as a champion of the underdogs who play by the rules on train platforms. You have to honor another person’s space. You can’t stand too close to another person until or unless you see the train pulling up, and everyone tightens up the ranks, bunching together to stand at the spot you believe the train steps will come to a halt.

Why break such a rule? Why place yourself in front of someone else just because you’re taller than them are? Or younger? Or slicker? Someone like me may just kill you and use the opportunity to leave behind a staid and predictable life that’s losing whatever meaning it once may have had.

My action could be considered justifiable in a weird sort of way. No, not in a legal sense, but in a Karmic sense, if you know what I mean. I’d create some negative karma but prevent others from getting such negativity in their thoughts and desires to kill as much as I wanted to kill him. I saved them and the rest of all sentient beings a large and cumulative amount of negative karma, that I could be considered a saint in some religions.

Watching my Speech, Thoughts and Relations Now

I bring this up now only because I asked the Universe to correct my old way of life. Certain actions occurred in response to my wishes.

But instead of acting, I became a “watcher.”  I was no longer the actor, but someone above myself looking down on my speech, my thoughts, my relations with others and events that became ripened by different causes and conditions.

No, I killed no one. But I entered a state of mind where I saw a different reality. A reality that has always been there but was blocked by my mind. My mind kept me busy with one thought after another: a fear here, an anxiety there. It jumped from an emotional thought from my past to a future where nothing, but catastrophes existed. And then my mind would race, with me having no control of it.

     I feel better now. I control my mind even in the most disastrous moments of life. Who’s to say they’re disastrous? Not me. Not anymore. I’ve gained the equanimity to treat the glorious and the profane the same way. As an observer. Not a slave to emotional and useless thoughts. Just an observer of the thoughts.

Try it.

     It Could be Worth Dying For . . .

Yearning for you grows with each touch

by contoveros

     What is a monk to do when he is lonely? When he is blue?

     When you reach that low point where you feel you are the loneliest person in the world, who or what do you turn to for relieve? 

    The Dalai Lama says, “Don’t scratch the itch.” Better still, he cautions, “Don’t have the itch in the first place.” I paraphrase His Holiness‘ words, but not their meaning. * Don’t have the itch in the first place.

     That may be easy for a virgin entering monastic life as an adolescent. But what do you tell a grown man or woman who had not entered their spiritual path until experiencing the warmth, comfort and love in the arms of truly caring and compassionate mate?

     Something so good could not be so bad.

Experiences that Unite can Last a Lifetime   

     Even years later when one has only a dim memory of giving oneself completely to another so that both could share the ecstasy that Buddhist say comes only upon death — and in sexual union! It can be an out-of-body experience that unites, shattering the dualistic mind, if only for a second or for a lifetime.

     Should I give up this yearning for the mere touch of another? Should I mark it up as just another depravity on my part, a defilement that my mind causes in my dreams and my waking hours?

     Why has such an overwhelming sense of sexuality come over me as I draw nearer and nearer to spirituality?

(By clicking on the following sentences, you will be linked with my book “Ithaca Insights.”)

     Take on a consort, Michael J. Didn’t Buddha have a wife and child? Didn’t Shakyamuni Buddha, or Siddhartha, take a Dakini on as a consort in one of his many incarnations?

     Who, then, are those lovely women I see sitting on the knee of a Buddha? And what can a bodhisattva do when a woman wraps her most intimate parts around his most private ones in those paintings that suggest Nirvana can be reached through some tantric practice with an able and willing partner?

     Forgive me for still being human. I dreamed I felt the warmth of another as we rode an escalator together, and our shoulders came into contact immediately. The contact remained throughout the time it took to scale the short distance. The warmth from the touch lasted for what seemed like forever. I never wanted the ride to end, for the shoulder to be removed. I could have died and been happy right then and there.

     I awoke and felt compelled to plead my case to the Universe, hoping I’d get the answer my soul could live with. Break it to me gently, please.

     I’ll return to my cave after the verdict.

* * * *

*(If one is itchy, then one scratches himself.
Better than any number of scratches
However, it is when one does not itch at all.”

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama quoting Nagarjuna, the Indian scholar, with a three-line thought on the question of Erotic Love.

Saying ‘I Love You’ Twice Blesses Me!

by contoveros

“I Love.”

It’s an affirmation I can live with over and over, day in and day out, from one lifetime to another, without ever getting tired of saying it.

It is in the giving of love that I’m twice blessed. I got so much of it when I come into your presence that I can’t keep it in, and I must share, or I know that I could die. And so, I tell you that “I Love You,” and hope that you never stop listening to me. Even if you blush and say that I’m only kidding and scold me, saying “Stop that, Michael. Quit playing around.”  Continue reading →

God needs no Out-of-Body Experience

by contoveros

Too often I hear someone talk about an “out-of-body” experience as if it was the greatest thing since, I don’t know, the invention of peanut butter. Astral projection is another feat people speak of in hushed tones as if their trip from one place to another meant everything in the world.

Well, I’m here to tell you there ain’t nothing like the good old-fashioned “In-Body” experience to get the blood rushing and the ecstasy flowing. ” It’s your body now, stupid.” You don’t have to go chasing some Holy Grail to find the answer “out there.” It’s here and it’s now. 

I was reminded of this when I suggested to a novice of the *Middle Way to try the “Body Scan” method of guided meditation. She sat for 25 minutes in a group and grappled with one thought after another. It was tough, she told me, but this dear child had taken her first steps toward enlightenment. They were baby steps.

With a little guidance, she made it through a sitting meditation. A brief walking meditation followed, and if her experience was anything like my first walk, she probably felt awkward, unbalanced, and out of shape. (See: Why must this path hurt so much?)

Need a Little Concentration in Meditation

The body scan can help with the concentration needed in meditation, I realized when I was giving advice to her several hours after our one-on-one talk. Find an instructor or a CD where someone could “guide” you through a scan, I suggested. Follow the guide’s instructions and focus on the part of the body the scan takes you.

The scan is nothing more than an attempt by a meditator to be acutely aware of one’s sensation of touch as it relates to, let’s say, your right foot. Upon hearing “right foot,” you make the foot the single-minded object of your attention. Feel the toes, focus on the big toe, now try to “sense” the toe next to it, and then the group of toes. Can you feel the pinky? The tip of the pinky?

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where the guide will take you next. Choose another part of the foot, say the insole, the ankle, or the heel, and allow your mind to hover there, being aware of each chosen part. Eventually, you’ll touch on all the parts and be amazed at how much easier it was to nudge thoughts out of your way!

Remove all Invasive Thoughts while Meditating

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call an “In-Body” experience. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. If you’re like my new novice friend (is that a redundancy? A “new novice friend“?), you’ll probably need a little help from a friend, or at least, a friendly voice. That is, until you’re able to gently move your meandering and invasive thoughts “out of the picture,” and become one with your body.

I experience a tingling sensation, an effervescent feeling while “in focus.” It’s generated by some low-level motor-like engine running constantly throughout the body. A warmth blankets me, while providing a coolness at the same time.

Staying as ‘I Am’ in the Present Moment

All needs and desires are gone, save one. A wish to stay where I am – as I am – for as long as the peace and calm will effortlessly carry me. Amazingly, I am totally aware of everything around me. I am much more than this body “chilling out” in this space, this time. There is no past, no future, and the present stretches from beginningless time to endless time. My consciousness feeds off some Mother Entity that is all around me and in me.

I bow to this power, this Divine Energy. Make me your water bearer, O Divine Mother. Let me be the instrument to share your unconditional love with others. Let them sip from your wisdom and the body of knowledge that’s stored inside their empty vessels. Be still, I will tell them. “Be still, and know that I am God“ is the Bible quote that can help us Be Still with the Divine.

     Now Rejoice in that Moment!

     (*The Middle Way is the path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.)

Don’t let me believe in all my thoughts

by contoveros

     I’m so scared because I don’t know what to do, nor who to turn to. Flashes of insights, intuition, and a “knowing” that borders on the Psychic have arisen in me and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.  Continue reading →

Friar Pope champions single moms, Chastises clergy for shutting ’em out

by contoveros

     He’s at it again. This time, the Friar Pope is championing what I call the “untouchable class” of Catholics, the single mother, also known throughout Christianity’s Dark Ages as the “UN – WED MOTHER.”

     (Funny, but those Dark Ages seem like only yesterday!)  Continue reading →

Doors are Opening for All Doing Good!

by contoveros

There’s a passage in Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus’ disciples complain that someone — one who is not one of them — is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. It seems that fundamentalists of all ages have held a belief that there was only one way to get to the kingdom; only one way, and that was through Jesus.  Continue reading →

I wish all compassion found in meditation

by contoveros

     On February 5th, 2012, a friend who calls herself, the Frugal Xpat, commented:

“I always wanted to meditate . . . “

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 →

Vietnam War veteran recalls his journey

by contoveros

     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 →

Let the Superfluous go, Cruise a Freeway

by contoveros

     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 already done all the heavy lifting. I planned the contours of my day, knowing when I could go on autopilot and when I needed to let the left hemisphere of my brain take over. You know, when I need to calculate, navigate, and/or investigate, I turn to the so-called “thinking” process. But I don’t let thoughts interrupt my breakfast while I eat.

     I awake with no problem and shave, shower, and dress myself, making only minor decisions in these efforts, particularly choosing which clothes to put on. Who needs to think while running water, flossing teeth, or flushing a toilet?

Think of Nothing but this Very Moment

     After getting into the car and driving to my preplanned destination of work or play, I need not think of the future or the past, but just the moment in front of me. This is my time, not someone else’s time, who would use it as unwisely as I used to by daydreaming, recalling past events, or projecting a thousand possibilities of things that could happen in the future that I had absolutely no control over.

     A soft calm spreads throughout my body. Stiff and sore parts start to loosen up and relax. I have no need or wish to be anywhere but where I am at the moment.

     I seek this plane of awareness when I read intently or listen deeply. When I’m in this “zone,” I retain more from a book or article, and hear not only spoken words from a speaker, but more of the meaning someone is trying to say without words.

‘Let Go’ of Everything but the Now!

     When I free myself of the noisy thoughts and outside interferences, I become more present for the environment I’ve chosen to focus on, be it reading or writing, laughing or crying, or simply standing or sitting while I wait to engage in my next series of “actions.” I am more “there” than ever before because I purposely “let go” of all that has little if anything to do with the “now.”

     I focus better on the job, finding more clarity on what’s needed and what’s superfluous. There’s a great word for you, superfluous. How much of what we do, say, and think is just that? Superfluous. How easy life could be if we eliminated more and more of the unnecessary add-ons that we thought so important at one time, but discovered never added one iota to our overall well-being.

     Breathing in, I am at home with myself. Breathing out, I am at home with you and all the love, compassion, and sense of equanimity that the best families could ever offer.

     All I have to do is Let Go.

     Now Cruise, Baby, Cruise.

Where is the boy I left home for the war?

by contoveros

I knew a boy

Who went to war

And left his home

Behind him.

I knew him well,

That boy was me

And now I cannot

Find him.

                                                                           — A Vietnam Veteran’s tweak of a World War II Sailor’s Song about War

Greet your road with love and compassion

by contoveros

     I’ve taken compassion on the road.

     Literally!

      I send affection to motorists cut off by a speeding car that winds in and out of lanes. I feel for the driver who was never told by the operator of a car in front that that operator was going to turn, despite what appears to be working lights that turn on and off when you press the turn signal lever up or down.

     My heart goes out to you who have observed the speed limit, inching no more than seven miles an hour over a 55-mph limit when someone in a pickup truck rides your tail even though the driver can simply pull into the open right lane and pass your car on the left.

     I used to curse out those I believed were inconsiderate drivers. You know the aggressive types that always seemed to have more important business to attend to than you did.  Too often, I’d let anger push me to the extreme, and I’d speed up to show ’em what a speedster they had met on the road. It was road rage, pure and simple. The more I focused on how I’d been insulted, the more the rage would become inflamed, causing me to see red and not care about the defensive driving skills I swore I would practice just a few minutes earlier when I was feeling more level-headed.

Compassion for So-Called Reckless Driver

     Then it dawned on me. I could feel compassion for the so-called reckless driver. I know what it is like to be in such a hurry. I’ve been there. I’d feel the world would come to an end should I miss an appointment, be late for a job, or fail in the impression I wanted to make by arriving early enough to greet someone.

     I always had a reason to speed. There were so many important things I had to do, to finish, to check off that “to-do” list to feel my life was worthwhile, that I was accomplished, that I am accomplishing . . . something.

     I try to understand how the person traveling in the car trapped himself or herself by his or her own expectations, the desires and attachments to concepts and ideas that were no more real than the make-believe “deadline” they have imposed on themselves. No, there has never been a line that we needed to reach to prevent someone from falling down dead.

     We’ve created this illusion. We’ve invested much of our lives into reaching certain milestones, destinations, and goals. That is all well and good, until we enslave ourselves to becoming totally “outcome-focused.” How you get there doesn’t matter, just as long as you carry out that task wherever it might be. Too often, it doesn’t matter who we hurt or cut off on the road we have traveled.

Process is More Important than the Finish Line

     The process itself, I have learned, is just as important as, if not more important than, crossing the finish line. We spend the greatest part of our lives in some sort of “process” to get something.

     We are squandering away that time if we focus on nothing but the ending. Why not learn to enjoy the road while we’re riding? Enjoy the lay of the land, the smooth macadam where the tires roll on following a bumpy part of the highway. Breathe in the air, the scented smell of that green-tree air-freshener of mint or the dark brown one that smells like brand new leather seats.

     Sip from your cup of hot coffee or cool water. Listen to music or the beautiful sounds of silence that help you to still the mind so that you can live through your senses now, not at the end of the road. It is in the moment that you can find true compassion. Seek it inside, and, if you’re lucky, you can pick it up as a hitch-hiker on a road less traveled.

Abide in the moment you just completed

by contoveros

I am Complete.

I am Finished.

     I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading →

Grounding & Aspirations help us fly higher

by contoveros

I remembered how to fly this morning. The first thing I needed for liftoff, I recalled, was good, solid grounding. Everything must be secured and brought to a complete stand-still before I could ever dream of taking off into the air. Continue reading →

Omega opens doors to lost PTSD veterans

by contoveros

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 →

Mindfully cleaning pot helps cleanse mind

by contoveros

Cleaning a pot can be very meaningful, particularly if you block out all thoughts and concentrate on nothing but you and the instrument that has helped provide you with so much nourishment. Continue reading →

Being present for the dying brings all alive

by contoveros

Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence. Continue reading →

Need no battle to understand war horrors

by contoveros

     When I heard the song  “Still in Saigon” the other day, I could have sworn a Vietnam veteran had written about his flashbacks and a need to process what was unprocessed as a young man.

     Little did I know that the writer never set foot in Southeast Asia, let alone serve in the military. That got me wondering about the performing arts and how someone who never experienced war could capture its long-term effects on those who faced combat. Continue reading →

Exercise Gets Me Higher, Step by Step

by contoveros

     I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life. Continue reading →

Point of the bruising is in the treatment

by contoveros

A black and blue mark developed on my chest, and I didn’t notice it until a fellow swimmer pointed it out while I was in a pool at the gym. The mark is a full inch in diameter, and I would gladly take on a half-dozen more for the immense benefit the initial bruising provided me.

Acupuncture eased and minimized my acute pain from a nagging groin pull. Continue reading →

‘Mammy’ can you hear? It’s your little boy!

by contoveros

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 →

How many times must we say “I’m sorry”?

by contoveros

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 →

Enlightening Chant Charms Meditation

by contoveros

After chanting a non-English mantra for some time, I finally learned its definition and discovered a gem of wisdom while contemplating its meaning. Meditating will never be the same, and I want to share with others a little of the enlightenment it’s provided me.

Om Mani Padme Hung. Continue reading →

A change in time helps change my reality

by contoveros

Reality shifted on me the other day, and it helped me realize that I have more control than my “resifted” thoughts allowed me to see. Now, with a “time-control outlook,” I can try to change my world for the better.  Continue reading →

Creativity shines when pure self emerges

by contoveros

     Creativity exists in all of us.

     But only those who nurture it can fully appreciate its magical transformation.

     I liken it to a mineral or rock that resides within, undisturbed by the daily thoughts and busy lives of quiet desperation. It can be uncovered only when one stills the mind and releases preconceived notions of what creation is all about.  Continue reading →

Rush Limbaugh should study reproduction

by contoveros

We should accept Rush Limbaugh’s apology for calling a woman a slut only if he agrees to take and pass a course on female reproduction. Then, and only then, can we be assured that someone other than locker-room juveniles has finally taught him the real facts about the birds and the bees. Continue reading →

Let Catholics ‘opt out” in birth control plan

by contoveros

I don’t understand all the fuss that Catholic universities and hospitals are raising over providing health care for women that includes mandatory birth control provisions. Why not let “Practicing Catholics” follow the teachings of their church to “opt out” for the coverage, while permitting non-Catholics what doctors and women’s groups say is a health benefit?  Continue reading →

Seeing a Veteran’s’ History Never Repeats

by contoveros

Do all of us & yourself a favor.

Keep an eye out for a Veteran.

Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading →

No where to go but ‘up’ after looking down

by contoveros

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. But I was ordered by an eye doctor to lean my head all the way toward the ground for 50 out of 60 minutes of each hour for seven straight days.  Continue reading →

Daily Meditation Desperately Needed

by contoveros

     It’s time for my disappearing act to begin. I close my eyes, wave an imaginary magic wand, and slowly begin to vanish from existence here. All thoughts and fears come to an end as I find protection beneath a cloak of invisibility, safe from the savages outside and the demons within.  Continue reading →

Don’t ‘better’ yourself by berating another

by contoveros

I was seething when I saw my former US senator decry Blacks receiving food stamps from the government. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told an Iowa audience this week that he would tackle this “race problem” if elected president, thus echoing the sentiments of his old congressional colleague, Newt Gingrich, who suggested poor students in city schools clean the bathrooms for their more affluent ones, rather than grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.  Continue reading →

‘Too Afraid’ to Say a ‘Woman Scared You’

by contoveros

“Why did you shoot her?”

“I don’t know.”

With these three words, the defendant buried himself, and no matter what I did to rehabilitate a self-defense claim before the jury, we were sunk. It showed that no matter what one plans, sometimes something can, and always will, go wrong.  Continue reading →

Life-Long Habit ‘Stroked’ Up In Smoke

by contoveros

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 →

Resolve to Stop Anger from Feeding on Me

by contoveros

Anger.

     It hits like a poison arrow causing me to drop what I’m doing and focus on the pain it inflicts.

Where does it come from? Is it shot from a bow of some unseen foe hoping to do me harm? Or does it arise from within when certain buttons are pushed, like a crazy bone reacting once a physician’s tool strikes that right (or wrong) spot?

My anger springs up almost immediately, spreading pellets out from a shotgun blast over a wide area, striking everything in its path, including the object of my ire as well as ones I never intended to harm.

The anger doesn’t dissipate once it explodes.

It lingers.

It simmers at a low boil, awaiting the opportunity to burn and scold anything or anyone my impatience forces me to look unkindly on and consider spraying upon. It pains and marks me as I hold it obscenely close trying to figure out where it came from, who or what caused it, and why I so easily fall prey to it whenever it erupts inside.

————-

     You’re a fool,

       Michael J.

       Let it go!

Remove the arrow before the poison spreads and engulfs whatever goodness remains in you. It can destroy whatever love and compassion you tried to generate in life when cool-headed and away from less stressful situations.

Don’t try to analyze, categorize or editorialize the grave danger it poses. Don’t believe you can control it. You cannot “befriend” it.

You Can’t Tame it.

It’s too strong and it will demand control of and over you every time.

Sure, you may have needed to use it to right a wrong, to defend with all of your might against some evil, to even kill so that an innocent could justifiably go on living.

But you must give it up! Use it sparingly, if at all, and release it as you learn the long, slow practice of patience.

————-

     This could be first step in understanding that this poison will always be there, that there is a cause for its painful existence; and that help is available to forestall its deadly mission once you learn to walk a path you always knew you’d need to follow to truly awake.

    PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can be treated and understood without having to face the slings and arrows of war day in and day out.

(Let me deal with the type of arrow that brought down a brave warrior like the Greek Achilles!

Recalling childhood angels with dirty faces

by contoveros

I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading →

All-women jury renders “unknown” verdict

by contoveros

The one and only time I stood before an all-women jury, I ended up asking for a mistrial after the judge and prosecutor entered the jury deliberation room without my knowledge and in violation of the sequestration rule to safeguard against jury tampering.  Continue reading →

Getting High With A Little Help From . . .

by contoveros

I got High Again.

I didn’t know how much I needed a “fix” until my head slumped on my chest and I “awoke” to a restful, calm, and peaceful world I had been away from for what seemed a lifetime. I felt.

But please don’t judge me. Don’t look upon me as weak or needy. I have tried so hard to be the strong, silent type who could weather any storm alone: self-reliant and dependent on no one except myself to get through the most difficult of life’s situations. Yet, each time I overcame what felt like one disaster after another, I knew deep inside I could not succeed on my own. I needed help from a Source I’d subconsciously tapped into to get me through each ordeal.

Craving for the ‘Elixir of Life’ Quick-Fix

I now admit I couldn’t have done it without getting high while no one was looking. I’ve become addicted. In recent days, months, and years, I needed more and more of what I call the “elixir of life.” I’d crave the equanimity it would offer me as a serotonin chemical would enter into my bloodstream, my consciousness, my very essence.

I don’t care what others might say about my habit anymore. I need a crutch to get through my day, and I’m only realizing now how much I struggle when I fail to take a hit. The earlier in the day, I can get it, the better. I need that something extra to assure me all is well, that all will be well, no matter what failings, shortcomings, or simple ignorance I bring to daily life.

     I am dependent on this “Source” to take me away from my worries, my concerns, my feelings of, I don’t know, call it an emptiness of sorts that so hard to describe, let alone, understand.

Search for a Place to be Alone Within & Without

When the need calls to me, I look for a place where I can be alone. I get into a comfortable posture, a familiar one that offers a tingling sensation of anticipation. I am going to escape, I tell myself, as I settle into a chair or on a pillow, exposing my vulnerability to forces outside and inside myself.

I open one hand to the heavens above, ready to accept whatever peace may soon come my way. My other hand rests downward, touching the solid earth that grounds me. The arm and exposed hand facing skyward await the blissful infusion the drug will eventually provide.

     I Close my Eyes.

My mind is racing like steaming locomotion, a runaway train minus a conductor at the controls. I can’t truly let go and open myself while my thoughts are zigzagging from one place to another. The thoughts fly from the past to the future. (They never seem to come to rest in the present!) Each carries unwanted baggage. I can’t rid myself of these thoughts. They come unbidden, unneeded. They impede my plans to escape the battlefield I’m maneuvering through.

I Stop Fighting.

      Stop swinging at unseen opponents, hoping a knockout punch will somehow save you, Michael J. Give in, take the fix. Admit that you can no longer live without it.

  And, That’s it.

Surrender.

Acquiesce to the Power Greater than Yourself. Feel warmth slowly spread through your body, easing the tightness in your neck and your shoulders, the parts so tense and coiled they feel like a jack-in-the-box ready to spring out. You need only breathe and allow the source to seep into you, to wash over you, to elevate your mind and your spirit.

Reaching Higher In Women’s Company

by contoveros

I Love Women.

I’ll take them in all shapes and sizes, the old and the young, the rich and the poor.

If it wasn’t for women, I — and a lot of guys I know — wouldn’t even be here! Continue reading →

All I Want For Christmas Is . . . Nothing!

by contoveros

     Am I un-American or anti-religious when I tell you something I’ve been trying to say for years, but have been afraid of hurting your feelings?

     I want Nothing for Christmas!  Continue reading →

Writing Reveals Truth Flowing Within

by contoveros

     Why do I write?

     The answer is: because I have to. I need the therapy to look deep inside to provide me. I’m not talking about surface writing. You know, the kind a reporter might type when covering some disaster, a meeting, or a political event that might include both. I write only after communing with some sort of truth that bubbles up from within.  Continue reading →

Counting to ONE the ‘thought-less’ way

by contoveros

No matter how hard I try, I can never count to 20 before an unbidden thought arises from inside of me. I get to three or four while meditating, and images pop up on an internal screen, capturing my attention. I dare not try this counting method until my body and mind are both well-settled and I can “Let go.” Continue reading →

Joseph’s Pregnant Conversion

by contoveros

“Did you hear what I said? I’m pregnant.

Joseph. Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“What’s there to say?” the young carpenter named Joseph said to himself.

“You tell me an angel “appeared” and “announced” you were with child . . . You ask me to believe no man had anything to do with this.”  Continue reading →

Open my Vessel for ALL Lights to Shine

by contoveros

     Thank God for Buddhism.

     What’s that you say?

     I can’t have one in, and of, the other?

     Are you telling this red-blooded American veteran that I cannot follow the teachings of the Buddha and still believe in the God of Abraham? Continue reading →

Tell best friends now why they’re the best!

by contoveros

     My best friend died before I could tell him how much he meant to me.

     Not a week goes by, that I don’t think of him or see him in my dreams. And if there is one thing I’d want to say to some new friend I might make in this life, it is that I truly treasure your “being there” for me. Continue reading →

My Loving Prayer to Saint Francis of Assisi

by contoveros

I want to follow and not lead;

Give  and not take;

 Love and not hate.

Like you, I want to be a soldier of peace and not war; a kind and loving friend to the poor and a prodding yet mild abrasion to the rich. Continue reading →

War is never the answer today (11-11-11)

by contoveros

On this Veterans Day, 11-11-11, what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and greet that young man recently returned home from the war?

     War is never the answer,

     But only a failure on all

     Sides to reach an answer. Continue reading →

Breathing mindfully helps to unclog me

by contoveros

I never thought I’d be thankful for a stuffy nose, but it helped me to meditate without really trying. It all started on a day I was off from work, and I stayed in bed as ten thousand thoughts ran through my mind. I noticed a clogged nostril and focused all of my attention on trying to reopen it.  Continue reading →

“Let’s Occupy a Vital Earth” — (L.O.V.E.)

by contoveros

  Let’s Occupy a Vital Earth!

     Try it on.

See if it fits and whether you’d be comfortable in adopting it when the Occupation of Wall Street and the protest at a thousand other locations worldwide come to an end.

And end it will, with nothing to commemorate it save historians remembering in their books the greatest mass demonstration since Abraham protested the Tower of Babel. 

And just like Babel, this rising up will fall into ashes, unless we harness the spirit from this “cry in the wilderness” and put it into action. An action that is both “for” and “against” the economic system we work in, if we’re lucky enough to have a decent job to work.

———–

     How can we do this?

  • — Simply by creating a group of conscientious citizens to recommend improving the economic lot of mankind. Form a committee from a variety of backgrounds whose principal task would be to monitor human affairs from a perspective of ethics and morality. Join religious, political, and scientific people together with bankers, artists, lawyers, and environmentalists. Recruit poets, academics, and writers and set their task to devise a system of commerce that encourages profits but inhibits the destructive competitiveness that places the pursuit of money above all other desires, above all other values.

————

     The wealthiest and most powerful nations understand that you cannot neglect basic human values. The Ninety-Nine Percenters are reminding them they need to change. They should accept a universal responsibility for the common good and the social contract they have with not only the less fortunate, but those of us with some economic security, who know deep inside what the One Percent is doing must end.

Once recommendations are made, the Committee would send its ideas to splinter groups of like-minded persons in each city, state, and country whose citizens could benefit from implementations. Publicize the names of banks, savings and loans and institutions that begin to comply with the voluntary suggestions. Let those with capital decide where to put their investments to perhaps take in less profit but give much more back to those who helped us with our gains.

     L.O.V.E. — that and good old-fashioned compassion will help in the pursuit of happiness, while relieving suffering for others.

Try it. It may Grow on You.

We have met the Enemy and he is Us!

by contoveros

I looked into the other side of the political spectrum, and I saw something I hardly recognized.

I saw myself.

How did this come about, this kinship I felt develop with those I meant to separate from? 

I refused to see them as a hateful enemy.

And then I saw him as someone I could try to understand from my own perspective from within.

I too place the highest esteem on rugged individualism. I don’t want any handouts and I think persons grow stronger when they must conquer adversities in their lives including economic, social and physical ones.

I like the Second Amendment to the US Constitution and believe that a man has a right to defend himself — and more importantly his family — if he truly believes they’re threatened by serious bodily harm and taking another’s life is the only way to prevent deadly force.

Don’t want to hear about it, but still approve it

I never want to hear that someone got an abortion or learn that a woman would ever find herself in such a desperate situation where the only option left to her was to choose such an irreparable action.

Government should stay out of my private affairs and require “means testing” for recipients of any programs the US and other industrial nations have created as safety nets. I would include America’s Social Security and Medicare programs in those categories.

     I would do away with all wasteful regulations and give bonuses to government workers who devise plans to cut spending, even if it meant savings by trimming their own department’s annual budget.

I want someone to invoke the goodness and compassion of a higher force when someone opens public meetings, but it doesn’t have to be the One I believe in.

Time to whittle away the differences

You know, I ain’t so much different from those guys “over there.” Now that I see how alike we are, perhaps we can whittle away at the differences we believe keep us so far apart. I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.(youtube.com)

 (“We have met the enemy and he is us”

    —from the old Pogo Comic Strip)

“For the Signs, they are a ‘Changing'”

by contoveros
(From Part I, These are true signs of our Times/)

The greatest protest of our generation is seeking change in all shapes and sizes. You can see it in the signs the demonstrators carry, writing the letters out really big with magic markers so that passersby need not squint to get the messages.

There is not just one message, but many, which all have one thing in common: a belief that our world can do better for all and not just the few, the ninety-nine percent making $55,000 a year (per family) or less, as opposed to the one percent controlling some 40 percent of the wealth in the United States of America.

     They don’t want your money, Mr. Entrepreneur, only your attention for a moral and ethical way of life that takes into consideration more than the Almighty Dollar.  Continue reading →

Bliss arises when I still my self in side

by contoveros

Ah, Bliss!

It’s so wonderful to welcome you to visit. You return when I least expect you, embracing me and bringing peace and calm just when I still myself and end needless thoughts.

Are any thoughts actually needed when I go within? I need but seek a quiet moment with no thought save the intent to be free of the past and the future, thus ensuring I will rest “In the Now.”

It’s not based on my part alone. I find that I need the inspiration that others give me. You, who give your love so easily by opening your heart, unafraid of any consequences, allowing me to touch your soul and be one with you. Yes, I become one with you when the truth from the Source touches me as I hoped it would while writing from the depths of my inner being. It is then that I feel the kinship, the brotherhood with men and women alike.

—————

     I seep into your arms, feeling the comfort that you offer. It is palpable, this feeling that arises. It is like a warm, fully lined coat, puffed up with weather-protected soft materials wrapped around me. I feel totally protected. Like a baby in a car seat with padding upon padding to ward off any harm.

I approach this level of consciousness by remaining perfectly still, freezing my body and then my mind. I sit with my eyes closed, taking in the sounds of a pet bird, motorists driving outside my home, and the ticking of a nearby clock.

It’s as close to heaven as I could ever imagine one could reach. I have no wants and no desires. I simply “am.”

Uh oh. I feel a slight pain in one leg, so I crossed over the other. Do I dare try to relieve this suffering by breaking the stillness? Can I remain in this state by easing my leg into a more comfortable position?

There, my leg is straightened out. I send my concentrated awareness to that part of the body that signaled the discomfort. I feel a warmth spread over that area. It is soothing. It blends in with the focus I still keep in this moment. I am still “In the Moment.” My peaceful calm has not been destroyed but simply adjusted. I need not fear slow, methodical actions to curtail my new, higher level of consciousness.

Should I experiment? Open my eyes and try to do something mundane?  Ok, Michael, pay the bill. You can’t get any more mundane than that. You’re writing the check, placing it in an envelope. You’ve just used the left hemisphere of your brain; now let’s scoot back to the right side.

—————

     There, you have it. Peace and calm are still here. You worked mindfully, just like the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, said you would.

Someone now asks you a question. You answer from what feels like a different world inside of you. You answer a second and third question, undisturbed and completely surprised that you can continue your feelings of love and happiness despite a break in your “meditative” posture. No, you don’t need to keep your eyes closed or to stay seated on a mat to be mindfully engaged with the world.

You just have to do it. Do these actions mindfully.

If you could only sell it to the world, we’d all live in peace and harmony. Hell, why don’t you just give it away freely?

     Offer it here for the taking.

Grant me a world of group friends, Amen!

by contoveros

As my world started to close in on me, demanding its immediate attention toward responsibilities, affairs of work, and needs in my house, I found an oasis inside of myself and in the thoughts of friends in my group.

Now, this ain’t just any ordinary group. It’s one where members have placed the concerns and desires of others above their own. It is a group of men and women, old and young, rich and poor, who have made altruism their guiding principle.

They — myself included when I can pick myself off the mat where I feel I’ve been beaten to time and again — give no advice but simply listen deeply to the concerns of another.

By opening our hearts, we let another pour out what may seem an insurmountable problem that somehow develops a miraculous solution once it is aired in the light of day. Some say it is the light that shines on our suffering that causes most predicaments to shrink in size, to be placed into a larger picture, and thus become more manageable.

————-

But you don’t know that when walloped to the side of your head by something that you did not see coming and want to fight against in the only way you know how: ferociously with no concern who you end up hurting. In most cases, the worst victim of your rage becomes yourself.

  •      That is why silence and a retreat from those worldly battlements are needed for replenishment. It is when I close my eyes to the chaos and uncompromising world that I begin to see hope and a cure for such destructive powers. I focus on naught but my breathing, mindfully nudging out thoughts of the moment until I can rest “in the moment” with no intrusions, save the golden silence broken only by breathing in and breathing out.

Then I visualize a friend or two from the group, a friend whose mere touch had lifted my spirits, one whose soft smile eased my heart and guaranteed — a mutual guarantee — that life is better than what our limited five senses can sort out.

———–

     I bask in the image of one friend and then another, recalling the love each offered as we gathered in assembly. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad, just an acceptance of the here and now. My group can be “life and in person” or a “virtual” one, as the messages we provide via the Internet. Loving compassion is palpable, no matter what forum it is conveyed in.
     And so, I say to my group that you are the greatest generation I have ever been fortunate to have been born into. I thank my lucky stars that whatever karma emerges, I’ll use it to take action for a more compassionate world. By placing my faith above reason, I can see a world where I will always call you “friend” and long to be as one in our group together. . . forever . . . world without end.

Setbacks Arise in Road to Life’s Answers

by contoveros

Kabbalah To Mingle With Buddhist Jaunt

by contoveros

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Acupuncture: ‘Dragon drives out Demon’

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‘Give Something Back’ starts from within

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You man a job right, job’ll right the man

by contoveros

     Jobs have a way of defining us. We become “the job,” or rather grow into what we perceive to be the “ideal performer“ of that job. Whether we like it or not. The job. Or ourselves.  Continue reading →

Utopia Exists in a Mere Change of Focus

by contoveros

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Short Stature Grows Larger With Love

by contoveros

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Meditation helps writer find a gem within

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Can a Wrong ever serve as a Right?

by contoveros

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Buy yourself a friend – read his good word

by contoveros
“Make yourself a Rav, and buy for yourself a friend.”
— Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachya Continue reading →

The Great Awakening can be hard on a guy

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Swimming meditation floats troubles away

by contoveros

Swimming meditation can work. You heard it here first. One can “nudge” out most thoughts and focus on the “here and now” as you swim one lap after another. I did. Got so relaxed, I lost count for a while, but then didn’t care how many lengths I had traversed.

Got into something Tibetan Buddhists call “analytic meditation,” where you focus on one subject and one subject only, viewing several aspects of an idea without clinging to, or being repulsed by, it. Works better while swimming on my back. Breathing, that is. You anchor meditation by your breathing, you know. Can’t raise your level of consciousness in shallow water. Must use deep long breaths. At least I have to. The kind of breathing I can safely do only while swimming the back stroke. Over and over again. Counting from one to 36 the number of lengths of the pool making up a half mile.

Kind of like a “walking meditation,” but at a faster clip. If I slowed to the pace I usually take while walking meditatively, I would sink like a stone. Drop to the swimming pool floor, and be forced to seek reincarnation quicker than I had hoped to see a new Life evolve.

I’m exercising my body and my mind while in the water. Exercising the mind, you ask? Yes. Stretching it out. That’s how I view meditation now a days. I try to use more than that 2 percent of the brain we normally use. Push my mind to the limit, try pushing the envelope toward the rare space where only the Mystics get to breathe.

You can do it. Swimming creates endorphins that lay the foundation for raising your consciousness, for rising to that spiritual Upper World where you become One with the Universe. OK, you’re not going to win the lottery by divining the daily number. But, you will open yourself to an awareness of an interconnectedness between all of us. Democrat and Republican. Jew and Arab. Me and You.

Care to try it?  Just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and dive in. The water temperature is just right.

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Saying ‘I Love You’ over & over again!

by contoveros

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Recovering from my road rage confession

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Living like I’m one of ‘All God’s Creatures’

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Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’

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A tough road makes journey a little easier

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Forgive warrior’s defense of the sensitive

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Walk a Labyrinth full with love & no desire

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