Category Archives: Spiritual But Not Religious

Banned Bookmobile on Road to Freedom

Banned Bookmobile!

Sounds like something cruising slowly out of a Twilight Zone episode.

But, it is the creation of MoveOn.org to organize a bookmobile to travel to sites in Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis will be speaking so that persons outside his listening audience can be freely given some of the books that he has banned in schools in the Sunshine State. They plan to have persons drive the vehicle around the state in highly trafficked areas that will attract media attention.

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Gabriel’s Messages – available to all souls!

“Gabriel’s Messages” opened my heart to so many truths not only about life but of the transition of death, and I hope that others can read this wonderful book by my friend, Cyndi Smith, a fellow member of the Center for Contemporary Mysticism of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

It offers hope to a world that seems so weary about bad news for it predicts a new order of things 25 years from now. For instance, a “food tax” will be developed and help to send food to all corners of the world to end hunger; fossil fuels will no longer be used and be replaced by battery power or renewable energy. and medicine will become universal – we will be able to see any doctor in any part of the world.

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St. Francis of Assisi is truly honored today

The world is celebrating the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi today! Francesco di Bernadone, whose real name was actually Giovanni (John), was born some 800 years ago. He came from a wealthy family. But turned his back on his mercantile father and gave up all worldly goods to help the poor as well as the animals.

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Awakening to sounds of the outdoors again

I got a new pair of hearing aids, and a new world of sounds has opened for me!

I wore ‘em outdoors during a walk on my 10,000-steps-a-day journey, and the first thing I noticed was the sound of birds chirping merrily in the trees I walked under. They had to have been communicating with each other because as soon as one stopped chirping, another one seemed to follow up in response.

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A photo gift for a GI & a swimsuit recovery!

What do a missing swimsuit and a 50-year-old photo of a newly-minted lieutenant have in common?

Both got lost and then recovered on a friendly trip to the library and the treasured gift of hoping for an uplifting outcome.

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Gabriel’s Message Enlightens the moment

The following is Gabriel’s Message as channeled by my good friend Cyndi Smith:

Your soul does not completely fit inside your body.  Some of your soul remains in Heaven in what you call your higher self.  Much of it is here inside of you but the part that overflows your body is called your aura.  

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A Brewerytown Kid Grows Up – Reviewed!

           Perfectly, Unadulteratedly Human

The authentic human voice is a thing many writers strive to capture. Few can claim to have succeeded. Contos, however, very much has earned that badge of honor. The text is home to an authentic and powerful narration that still, in its honest humanity, grounds itself in the humble approach to one man’s life and what that life means.

I don’t often cry over books. It’s not that I can’t, it’s just something that very rarely happens.

I cried reading about the kid of Brewery Town.

Take that as you will.

Katherine D. 5.0 out of 5 stars

– Jan 22, 2022

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Please Disregard My “Last” Transmission!

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated . . .”

This quote from Mark Twain touched my very soul yesterday when I got a message from one of my old colleagues who said that he had read something “disturbing.” The exact quote via Messenger was: “Michael, are you okay? I saw something disturbing for your name.”

My reply: “Disturbing? I haven’t done anything to warrant that since I made an illegal turn into the senior citizen center in Upper Merion Township last week and a cop stopped me.”

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Guided meditation calms Covid concerns

Mindfulness meditation has awakened within me.

I am once again being guided by my good friend and co-founder of the Center for Contemporary Mysticism, Joe Irwin a former church pastor.

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Conshohocken site may hold remains of a saint

I knelt at the gravesite while bowing my head and closing my eyes to pray yesterday morning. I was visiting Calvary Cemetery of West Conshohocken, the burial site for Father William E Atkinson, an Augustinian priest who passed away in 2006 and is now being considered for canonization by the Catholic Church to be named a saint.

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Wallet found & returned synchronistically

I felt like a boy scout as I found a young woman’s lost wallet and marched it to the police station while another person walking outdoors helped to notify the owner.

By the time I got to the borough hall building and spoke to a police spokesperson, the woman had called the station and was on the phone the moment I walked into the headquarter’s dispatch center.

Wow! Talk about synchronicity!

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My Vietnam War book is finally published

It took me more than 50 years, but I finally published my Vietnam War story and the toll it took on me after leading a combat infantry platoon as a 21-year-old first lieutenant in the US army.

I self-published with the help of editors who wrote the back cover description. They used a mug shot I had taken some ten years ago while attending a PTSD meditation clinic at Omega Institute for veterans and their families. The clinic introduced me to different forms of meditation that allowed me to eventually deal with the trauma and view the war experience in a more benign and compassionate light.

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Are you Catholic? No, I’m Christian

I experienced one of those “holy shit” moments the other day.

You know the type of experience you get from something you see, hear or read and you just have to say to yourself out of earshot of everybody something like: “holy shitoli!”

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Sychronicity hits my home and my heart!

Synchronicity is a term I have come to cherish since being introduced to it by my favorite psychologist, Carl Jung. It refers to deeply meaningful coincidences that mysteriously occur in one’s life. Jung proved by the law of probability that they were not mere coincidences but insights into our rich and worthwhile lives.

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Treasures discovered on my daily jaunt

I have found so many little treasures on my daily walk as I strive each day to achieve my goal of 10,000 steps.

Yep, I log all of my paces on a skinny Fitbit wrapped around my wrist which also tells me the time of the day as well as the number that is calling my cell phone.

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Universe conspires: All roads lead to Georgia

Today, I am a Georgia boy once again. And if we try hard enough, all of us could be Georgians!

Over the next several weeks I hope Americans join with me in offering positive intentions to convince the universe to focus and raise up the wonderful State of Georgia.

 

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Karma enlightens Groundhog Day movie

“Groundhog Day” is the movie starring Bill Murray who visits Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he is destined to live each day over and over for what seems like eternity. Its message is one of Karma and reincarnation, particularly when one realizes that the director and co-screen-writer was a practicing Buddhist named Harold Remis. Continue reading →

Blast from the past: the nuclear bomb desk

I will never forget my old wooden desk in grade school and the drills we held in order to protect us from a nuclear blast. The nuns from St. Ludwig’s Catholic School ordered us to get out of our seats and to curl up beneath the desks where we practiced the silence of Benedictine monks. Someone had pulled down the shades over the wide windows of the second-floor room and we sat for long minutes that felt like hours. Continue reading →

Father Koenig’s life lessons at St. Ludwig’s

Father Koenig put the gloves on me when I was ten years old and directed me toward the kid who was my same size but some two years older. That kid – Billy McLaughlin –  kicked my butt. But I never cried or gave up as I swung wildly at him in efforts to land my own punches. Continue reading →

Sharing a little mysticism from days of old

I experienced the Presence of God when I was 12 years old but didn’t know it until some fifty years later when I meditated and realized how much the Divine had filled me when I was praying for a girl I had just met on that glorious pre-teenage weekend. Continue reading →

Giggling at somber times can enlighten you

Alexander giggled like a schoolboy as 40 of us met in a service Sunday and quietly tried to meditate for some 30 minutes.

Wait a minute. He is a school boy. Alexander was all of 14 years old yesterday while attending the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia along with his mother. I was sitting next to the youth and about halfway through the gathering, a sound erupted from the other side of the room. It sound like someone adjusting a metal chair on the wooden floor, but to a young mind like that of Alexander, it also sounded like someone farting. Continue reading →

Truth revealed in trial despite the lawyer

A “dead-dog-loser” is the name trial lawyers gave to cases no one expected you to win in court. I had a few of them and always tried my best to get a defendant to plead guilty before making a fool of myself and him by calling his case “ready” for trial. Continue reading →

Accepting the ‘As Is’ with Gratitude & Joy

There is a message I receive every time I travel to the IKEA store and visit the “As Is” department. I get a feeling that the Universe is telling me to open myself to the message the Swedish furniture store wants to share with the rest of the world.

Accept life “As Is,” it softly calls out to me. Continue reading →

How would like to see yourself next year?

If I had a magic wand I’d wave it all over my body, magically ordering it to relax and begin to accept all the good and the bad life has to throw at me

I would want to treat it all with equanimity. Continue reading →

St. Michael the Archangel honored today!

September 29th is Michaelmas Day, the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, when everyone with the moniker of Michael will feel the roots extending from our favorite saint. Continue reading →

Creativity flows from a true act of defiance

When the Good Lord created the universe He created order out of chaos. He instilled Free Will in earthlings, something he withheld from the angels of whom He created first. Continue reading →

Shooting political signs never the answer

I wanted to shoot the political sign I saw outside of Philadelphia the other day but ended up feeling sorry for all of us who react violently against the person we demonize on the other side of the aisle. Continue reading →

Cats & Dogs would come first in a do-over

If I had my druthers, I think I would have made cats and dogs more like people and make people more like the other animals.

Yes, as God, I would have changed the book of Genesis and created the dog first and then taking a rib from the first one, I would have created his loving mate and good friend, the cat. Continue reading →

Contoveros reveals his dark hiding place

You’ll never find me here. I learned years ago that I could hide away from you whenever I feel you’re looking too closely at me or expecting me to act a certain way that I really don’t want to act, to speak, or to even think. Continue reading →

African Americans lose all, Mr. Trump

“What the hell do you have to lose?” Donald Trump shouted to the all-white audience while pretending he was asking African Americans to vote for him last week.

In response, Chris Rock responded with one word: “Everything.” Continue reading →

LSD truthfulness speaks to past love lost

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just thought you needed to know, that’s all.”

Peaches said nothing as we sat on the floor of her vestibule. I saw her eyes water up a little and I wanted to cry myself.

“I still love her” I continued without looking at the young girl I had shared such an intimate moment with at the young age of  19.

“I guess I never stopped loving her, if you want to know the truth.”

“You were her best friend in high school and you knew her as much as anybody did” I said, asserting a belief that neither one of us could deny. “I would break up with her, but we’d always got back together every time. You knew that when we first dated.”

“I should have been honest with you. But I liked you, I still like you. And wouldn’t hurt you for anything. But I don’t love you. I love Peggy, and I guess I always will.” Continue reading →

‘Instigator’ muse helps to open new worlds

Can someone become the “muse” of another?

Could my reckless and often unabashed “agitation” be the instigation for another person to find the voice she needed to speak directly from her soul?

I like to think so. I believe I might have sparked a keg of memories that were waiting for the right moment and touch to manifest and explode for the world to finally see. Continue reading →

Anger starts out from my basic personality

Why is anger my “go to” emotion? Why does it crop up whenever I’m confronted with something I don’t understand or something I feel threatened by?

“Crop up” is not the right phrase to use. My anger “erupts.” It goes from zero to sixty within the span of a mini-second. It always seemed to be that way, even as a kid. Now at last I think I know why. Continue reading →

Touch at least one heart with Meet-Up now

If you could go back in time to attend a Meet-Up in Jerusalem with the famous rabbi from Nazareth to share some bread, wine and good conversation, would you sign up and go?

How about traveling back some 2,600 years to give a listen to the Four Noble Truths in northern India by a fellow who some claim had reached enlightenment? Would you agree to meet weekly to discuss life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Continue reading →

A Course of Love is uniquely one of a kind!

Reading a chapter from the book, “A Course of Love,” is much like my study of the Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah.

I get uplifted and carried to another place, a different state of mind where I feel closer to the Word. The Word of God, if you know what I mean.

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‘Love & Rockets’ explode near this veteran

My son, Nicholas, just didn’t seem to understand how much pain I suffered in Sutcliffe Park when I took him to see fireworks on clear and starry night sky on the Fourth of July some years ago.

At first, I enjoyed the rockets zooming into the air. They were a colorful red, white and blue explosions that took your breath away with gasps of wonder and awe.

Soon however, they took on a menacing demeanor, however, as each blast began to remind me of the Vietnam War and the rounds of mortar fire that fell on me and my platoon some 30 years earlier. Continue reading →

Dissolving Pain through seeing differently

I’ve opened my mind to a new way of seeing and I am free as long as I can keep my peripheral vision on anything but the object of my focus.

What I do is distract myself from looking at the car in front of me when I’m cruising on the highway. I set my gaze off in the distance where I take in the beautiful blue skies interrupted now and again by a while cloud. Continue reading →

‘Brewerytown Way’ Brought Back to Life

I see my life through the eyes of a kid who grew up in Brewerytown, swashbuckling my way through fights on the streets and later the jungles of Vietnam before finding my true calling as a spiritual clarion who wants all North Philadelphia children to return to their God-given Nature of Love. Continue reading →

Trusting the Universe when ‘lost & found’

I lost the damn wallet again.

It was the second time in about a week it turned up missing. The first time was in Korea and I never detected it’s loss. The Reverend Lee, the WON Buddhist minister leading a pilgrimage in Korea last week, had approached me with a black object in her hand. She looked worried and I couldn’t figure out what caused her distress. Continue reading →

Chanting can cure what ails your busy mind

“Namuamitabul” is a Korean Buddhist chant that means “The Buddha of infinite light, infinite life, and infinite wisdom.”

This chant is recited numerous times by participants in a WON Buddhist meditation as part of a routine that involves chanting, sitting meditation, and walking meditation. Continue reading →

A spiritual path with a dark & stormy night

“Dark Night of the Soul.”

I have no idea what Saint John of the Cross meant when writing about his spiritual struggles several centuries ago, but I feel as if I’ve been going through one all day today. Continue reading →

Serving graciously as a St. Ludwig altar boy

Ad Deum Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meam!

That’s one of the prayers I’d recite as an altar boy at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church and I’ll never forget it ‘til the day I die. Don’t ask me what it means. I never figured it out, but I loved to say it! Continue reading →

Korea calling me to seek answers within

Korea awaits me next week as I travel more than a thousand miles to find myself and discover reasons why I am still here on planet earth.

Yes, I’m joining a group from Philadelphia, New York and Chicago that will fly to Seoul, South Korea, to take part in the centennial celebration of the WON Buddhism founding by its master on April 28th, 1916. Continue reading →

Equanimity for anticipation & expectations

Carly Simon sang it . . .

The Heinz ketchup bottle illustrated what it could look like . . .

And I have fallen victim to it whenever I try something new and start to visualize what could possibly go wrong.

It’s called “AnticipationAnxiety!” Continue reading →

Words Prompt Me to Share Love of Music

I heard a banjo strum as I fed the birds outside near the plum tree in my yard this morning. Banjo? Strumming? Where could that have come from, I wondered?

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Nothing found when seeking Love within!

I went within and felt nothing this morning. I knew this day would come, but I thought I would put it off until the day I’d die. Yes, I thought I’d have enough juice within to tell my story until I took that last breath.

But Life fooled me. It hit me upside the head, showing me you can’t take anything for granted. All things are subject to change. All phenomena are transitory, all are impermanent. The only permanence that exists is Love I believe that energizes us and the world we all live in. Continue reading →

Name three things that inspire a better you

Day 7 – Total Balance Is Natural Balance

Question 1 of 4

Describe three sources of inspiration in your life that keep you aiming to be a better you.

— Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra’s Free  21-day Meditation
———-
My calling in life is to help others come closer to the Light. I firmly belief that we all came from the Light, and that we all want to return to it. I want to share my experiences with the Divine so that others can see how Love’s energy can raise from life’s difficulties a simple schmuck like me.

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Create a life of magical renewal with Love

If I had a magic wand I would wave it and remove all of the hate in our land. It would take away the hurt all felt throughout the ages of man from the beginning of time when Cain killed his brother and when a stupid Esau sold his birthrate to his brother Jacob for a lousy bowl of soup. Continue reading →

Weight loss found in lightening myself & I

One doesn’t have to go on a diet to lose the excess weight of a lifetime of living. All you need do is to lighten your mind, get rid of burdens carried from childhood when the trauma of difficulties and missteps caused you to stumble and lose faith in your God-given direction.

“Lighten up,” is what someone told me once, and that is exactly what I have tried to do after experiencing Holotropic BreathWork  and listening to the new “Weight Loss” meditation offered by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra today. My struggle has ended and from now on, I will be harmony with me, myself and I. Continue reading →

Message from lower world: lighten burden

My host in Freiburg, Germany, escorted me and her husband on a shamanic journey as we laid on the carpeted floor in their guest room and she guided us to the “lower world.” She drummed for a good 15 minutes, never letting up the beat as she walked around us covered by blankets with eyes closed and our hearts open. Continue reading →

Calm the wandering mind & feel happiness

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

Don’t take my word for it. Scientific research has discovered that the active conditions of anxiety and agitation causes unhappiness. Becoming quiet and stilling the mind lowers blood pressure and relieves the stress that’s produced in our busy lives. Continue reading →

Journey into self opens possibilities for me

I manifested as an African American riding a horse as a cowboy in the old American West.

Next, I felt the chains on my legs as I rowed in a galley ship as a Greek slave in a land governed by the Romans in some year BC.

Sand. Lots of sand with its rich mixture of roughness and tan properties became my next existence.

That was followed by my essence being made up as a piece of glass. A clear glass with a tint of green like the old-fashioned Coca Cola bottles.

Finally I envisioned myself turning into a Soldier of Love with healing powers I never knew existed. Continue reading →

The Shadow helps in Spiritual Maturation

What is healing?

Those words in German jumped off the page from a brochure I couldn’t read, but by the end of a presentation in Freiburg, Germany, I got a better handle on who does the healing.

I do! And you do! Continue reading →

Obstacles to German retreat removed now

I feel like the character in a comic strip who has had a cloud over his head with nothing but calamities and obstacles blocking his every move. No matter what he did, he’d be thrown off stride, be it from a torrential rainfall or an avalanche along a sunshine-filled pathway. Continue reading →

Home where I grew up still haunts my mind

I grew up in a two-story row house in North Philadelphia in a mixed neighborhood where we played in front of the fire-plug and got ice from old ice-trucks that made their way up the tiny one-way street. Continue reading →

Fun times await all who can be a kid again

I’m having fun.

I’m enjoying life and feel a peace and calm I didn’t know I’d ever experience again. It’s like falling in love for the very first time. I look forward to each new day filled with hope and a smile for whatever life presents to me. Continue reading →

Universe conspiring to guide us all

When will I ever learn to trust the Universe?

When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ? Continue reading →

My Vision Board’s World-Wide Travelling

A few weeks ago, I envisioned what the coming year would be like in a “Vision Board.” I got together with a small group and pasted magazine pictures and bold 48-point type letters to a cardboard placard showing what we would like to see enfold in 2016.

I placed the Vietnam War book at the top, adding lots of spiritual and meditative symbols along side of it. On the bottom line I pasted “Love to Travel” and displayed two large pictures of my son and I on a cruise to Alaska some two years ago.

Little did I know then that writing about the war would take a backseat while my traveling plans would enlarge and grow immensely! Continue reading →

‘Singer of Truth’ is Contoveros’ Aspiration

The word, “Contoveros” in Latin means “Singer of Truth.” I didn’t know that as a child when I learned that it was my father’s real last name. Someone at Ellis Island shortened it to “Contos.” One of my wives once told me that the new word means “Short.” Continue reading →

The Ice Man Cometh for Me and for Thee

It was the ice on the truck that beckoned to me when I was five-years-old and playing on the one-way street near my home in North Philadelphia. Continue reading →

Thinking of the best way to speak to you

“Think before You Speak” reads the sign that my new best friend gave me for Christmas. She thought of me when seeing it, she said. She knew how many problems I have had with boundaries. Or, rather, lack of boundaries. Continue reading →

Reiki dream opens me to be truth-telling

Reiki, the universal life energy,  opened me to one of the most vivid dreams of my life last night. And, as my Reiki teacher once told me, “Write down your dreams . . . There could be a message in store for you.” Continue reading →

Peace shared throughout the world today

“What am I doing here?” I asked myself as I sat in a cushioned chair with some 50 other people early this morning on the last day of 2015. I was here at the invitation of a woman I hardly knew, a minister, that enticed me to join the world in a planet-wide prayer for peace. Continue reading →

‘Post-Traumatic Growth’ can help you heal

I experienced something scientists have labeled “Post-Traumatic Growth” twice in my life and some forty years apart. Both led to major changes in my life and a new look at life like I never had imagined it to be. Continue reading →

Mourning Allison’s Sister with Joyful Love

I didn’t know how much joy there could be in grief until sorrow encompassed me and a warm flow of unconditional love spread throughout my entire being. Someone I knew experienced a death in her family and it hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks when I learned of her demise . . . Continue reading →

Owning the mental illness amongst us

Mental illness scares the shit out of me. The very term conjures up images of some crazed guy with wild, straggly hair and a demon-like smile of malevolence. Steven King kind of comes to mind when I think of someone who might be a little touched in the head. A Stephen King character, that is. Not Stephen King. Continue reading →

Fear not your brightest light, let it shine!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.

bright light

Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

— Marianne Williamson

( My good friend MaryCatherine shared this and I am shining it for you!)

How did we choose the journey we’re on?

I would love to write a book about how people came to the current  journey they’re on.

You see, I have this tendency of going up to people and asking them how they came to be where they are; that is, spiritually, if you know what I mean. Continue reading →

‘Healing the Western Soul’ heals & inspires

When was the last time you read a book where you had to stop to digest what you just took in because you wanted to savor what you felt?

And then while resonating with it, you get a warm glow about yourself; you feel lighter, more connected with the world and so happy that another person can put into words what you know is so true? Continue reading →

‘I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace’

Why is it that I find myself sticking my foot into my mouth everytime something good comes my way? Why do I screw things up so badly? What curse have I created in some past life for me to resolve through some kind of karmic debt that I must repay in this lifetime? Continue reading →

On my knees being grateful every day

I fall to my knees every day and give thanks for at least three things that I am totally grateful for. I usually include my son and at least one of our cats, but also acknowledge the advent of a new day as well as a nice new warm bed and the person who invented the heater to keep all of us warm. The cats included! Continue reading →

What I Believe Makes Me Who I Am

Who am I? What do I believe? And, can I name a few of my beliefs?

Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order. Continue reading →

What I believe will enhance my life forever

I believe that all of us are placed on this earth for a purpose, and the aim for us in life is to find out what that purpose is!

We don’t usually seek the answer right away. Most put it off until some calamity forces us to find answers to life’s most important questions. Why am I here? Why am I in this body? Who am I, really? Continue reading →

My ‘Vietnam War Recall’ starts tomorrow

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, and more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say . . . war is all hell.” 

  • American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman

Continue reading →

Taps by my Emotional Freedom Technique

If you haven’t tried it, you ought to Google “EFT” and see if such a technique could help with whatever might ail you today!

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Opening myself through group awareness

I grew when meeting four people Monday who helped me expand my consciousness in ways I had never knew existed before. Someone introduced me to the Fifth Dimension, while another invited me to a New Age exhibition in Bucks County where light-workers of all shapes and sizes would introduce newbies like me to new and exciting pathways to Nirvana. Continue reading →

9-11 is Our Generation’s ‘Day Of Infamy’

Like December Seventh, Nineteen Forty-One, “9-11” will go down in American history as a new generation’s day of infamy.

In my lifetime, it ranks up there with the horrific day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Continue reading →

Recalling love in a 30-yr-old 1-night stand

You wanted more and I couldn’t give it to you. I was seeking love, romance, and someone I could be committed to. You simply saw me as a “one-night stand.” Someone you enjoyed being with for an hour, a night, or just one day in the life of two ships like us meeting briefly on a night at sea. Continue reading →

Joe Hill never died, he went on to organize!

On this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to offer the song “Joe Hill” to all my union-supporting friends, and share the story of the man who helped me as a union organizer in what seem another lifetime ago. Continue reading →

Songs offered hope to Vietnam War grunts

Musical refrains from Rock & Roll songs helped get me through the Vietnam War. I didn’t know all the lyrics of the songs, only those short parts where I’d stop what I was doing and raise my voice in unison with the lead singer. Continue reading →

A ‘Lot of Heart’ can go a long way in life!

Kids I grew up with in the tough section of North Philadelphia said that I had “a lot of heart.” I cherish that statement more than any I later heard as a teenager, a young adult or even someone in his middle ages looking back on what made him the most proud in his short lifetime. You’d have a “lot of heart” if you didn’t care for the consequences when sticking up for a black kid when a white “friend” called him the “N” word and then classified you as a “N-gger lover” for coming to his defense.

Continue reading →

Reiki Melts Away Stress Very Handily

Reiki melts away stress. That’s how it works on me. I feel parts of my body easing up, relaxing and “collapsing in” on themselves, if that is possible or, rather, imaginable. I liken the feeling to the green-colored Wicked Witch of the West who, when splashed accidentally with a bucket of water by the Tin Man trying to douse a fire engulfing the Straw Man, the personification of evil in the Merry Old Land of Oz declares, “I’m melting. I’m melting.” Water melts away the bad, and Dorothy is proclaimed all that is good. Continue reading →

A rant against disrespect, hurt & the war

Much of what I know about war was what I learned while playing as a kid. You know, using a stick or a broken branch from a tree, I’d pretend it was a rifle to shoot the bad guys who were out to get me and the rest of the good guys in my old neighborhood. Continue reading →

Defense Attorney Regrets His Prosecution

All of my legal career involved defending someone charged with crimes or offenses against the law. I worked 20 years as a lawyer, trying more than a hundred jury trials, winning more than half of them.

But to be honest, my first taste of arguing the law came not as a defense lawyer, but as a prosecutor, one appointed by some colonel to bring charges against a buck private who broke a law and faced a summary offense for some minor infraction.

Continue reading →

Cause of All Wars Questioned in Confederate Flag Controversy

President Barack Obama may have raised an issue on all wars when he eulogized a fallen comrade on June 26, 2015, at the funeral for the pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

While never detracting from the valor that Confederate soldiers fought with in the Civil War, he offered a plain and simple truth.

The cause they fought for was wrong. Continue reading →

Achilles Contoveros spoke with his hands

We could never ever have a delicate coffee table in our home when I was growing up. My dad – who came to America from Greece when he was only 15 – would smash his hand onto the table, breaking it in two or more pieces. Continue reading →

Open yourself to hear the Universe speak

Listen to what the Universe is saying. It may speak to you in ways you might not understand unless you’re open to all means of communication. Continue reading →

All senses call out to me when meditating

Meditate mind

Closing my eyes, I open all my senses to group meditation!

The smell of lavender and a hint of myrrh greet me as I walk into the meditation room. I had not expected my sense of smell to be the first one to experience such a warm and inviting welcome. I should not have been surprised. The olfactory system is the first sensory organ I usually use, and I’m not too proud to state I am usually lead by the nose. Continue reading →

True Love Passed Over for a Child’s Sake

Peggy sat at the table of the Blue Jay Restaurant, staring out the window and wondering where her life had gone, and what she should do with her new condition. Continue reading →

Calling all ‘Spiritual Soldiers of Fortune’

I believe that I have become a “spiritual soldier of fortune” and would travel anywhere my heart beckons me to learn, to pray, and to find answers about the universe.

I got an inkling of this calling when I was a teenager. It came about when I was 18, just out of high school, and experimenting with grass and LSD. Timothy Leary enticed me with his message in the 1960s, advising all to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” I turned on and tuned into the message, but couldn’t afford to drop out because I was from a working-class family that saw work as a way out of poverty and into the middle class. Continue reading →

Touched by an Angel to Help Guide Others

Angels can perform magic if we open ourselves to ’em! Continue reading →