Category Archives: Letting Go

Healing others starts first with healing self

by contoveros

   Words of Another can help in Your Healing

 I felt a lot of healing when I read the following quote from the feminine deity: Moor Jani:

     “We all have the capacity to heal ourselves as well as facilitate the healing of others. When we get in touch with that infinite place within us where we are Whole, then illness can’t remain in the body. And because we’re all connected, there’s no reason why one person’s state of wellness can’t touch others. Elevating them and triggering their recovery. And when we heal others, we also heal ourselves and our planet.

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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!

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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.

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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. —

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. Continue reading →

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?

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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.

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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)

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‘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.

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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”?

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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Breathing to ‘Right Self’ is a Lifetime Job

by contoveros
      Don’t think my friend, Lea Stoneheart, expected such angst from me while responding to her comment about “The Hidden Costs of War” Retreat at Omega Institute five days last week [April 22, 2010].  It just spewed out. I guess I’m still processing much of what occurred. It will take time to learn to use tools to seek peace without first having to go to war.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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Yearning for you grows with each touch

by contoveros

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

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.

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Where is the boy I left home for the war?

by contoveros

I knew a boy

Who went to war

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Greet your road with love and compassion

by contoveros

     I’ve taken compassion on the road.

     Literally!

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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 Needed to Ground Myself to Rise Higher

I remembered how to fly this morning.

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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.

Non-Veterans Can Understand War Tragedies Too

     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 Benefit Can Outdo the Pain Sometimes

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

     View All You have Contact with as Your Mother

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

Will I ever Be Forgiven for My Actions?

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

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“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.

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.”

Continue reading →

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.

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Setbacks Arise in Road to Life’s Answers

by contoveros
  • Enroute to Shangri-La, I lost my Passport.
  • My ticket to Israel and India disappeared along with all paperwork that would allow me to leave the United States to begin a 12-day pilgrimage. The trip of a Lifetime.  Continue reading →

Kabbalah To Mingle With Buddhist Jaunt

by contoveros

     What do Israel and India have in common with Istanbul and Amsterdam? Other than all starting with a vowel?

        It’s where this Philadelphia lad is heading from Nov. 6 through Nov 18, creating a pilgrimage that will touch base with five of the World’s largest religions: Christianity and Judaism, as well as the Muslim and Hindu faiths, ending at the land where the Buddha gained enlightenment.  Continue reading →

Acupuncture: ‘Dragon drives out Demon’

by contoveros

      A Dragon entered me and drove away a Demon last night.

    A student at the WON Institute performed acupuncture, penetrating into my psyche as well as my epidermis. More importantly, she opened her heart with such compassion I wept, feeling her healing spread throughout my body and soul.  Continue reading →

‘Give Something Back’ starts from within

by contoveros

     “I Want to Give Something Back.”

     How many times have you heard this? How many times have you said it? “Give something back.” Not sure what that “something“ is, but you know you got it, and you got a “need” to share “it.”

Continue reading →

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

      Another Reality exists within the here and now, if I can disengage and step out of the World that I am sleep-walking in.

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Short Stature Grows Larger With Love

by contoveros

Came up with an idea for a short story.

Myself!

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Mr. Nice Guy wins, but loses in the end

by contoveros

I’ve had to push you from my mind, to save my mind. Get you out of my Life to live my Life.

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Meditation helps writer find a gem within

by contoveros

The excitement would start while half asleep, tossing and turning, waiting for morning to jump out of bed, freshen up, and make my way downstairs to discover my latest surprise.

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Can A Wrong Ever Serve Into A Right?

by contoveros

“Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman.”

Never thought an affair I had with a married woman before turning 21 would qualify for “conduct unbecoming,”  but looking back, I see how conflicted parties to such an act could become.

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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

     Could never relate to the old “Church Lady” that seemed so righteous and God-fearing.

     You know, the one that constantly quoted the Bible and swore everything you ever wanted to know about anything could be found in “The Good Book.”

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The Great Awakening can be hard on a guy

by contoveros

Ashamed. Impure. Dirty.

     All these feelings flashed through me as I slowly came out of what seemed like a trance, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, only to notice growth at a part of my body where there was none before.

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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.

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Saying ‘I Love You’ Over & Over Again!

by contoveros

     “I love you” was not in the way you said it, but how you said it.   

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Recovering from my road rage confession

by contoveros

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have cursed out drivers on the open highway and prayed their mothers had never conceived them. In or at of wedlock, those dirty b . . . . . .

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

by contoveros

I dove into a World of Make Believe, changing from one past life to another while underwater and on land yesterday.

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Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’

by contoveros

      Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday. 

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A tough road makes journey a little easier

by contoveros

     When my father spoke Greek with the disciplinarian of the Catholic High School where I played hooky at age 14, I thought I had it made.

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Forgive warrior’s defense of the sensitive

by contoveros

You invited me to your House, and I broke confidence in you.

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