I saw you as a little girl with a smile as bright as Shirley Temple, a chocolate-haired “Annie,” a young Rosie Perez.
Category Archives: understanding
‘Give Something Back’ starts from within
“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.”
Rabbits scamper at Conshohocken home
I see shiny red eyes staring at me, causing me to decelerate and focus where the gutter comes into contact with the street. Long white objects that look like “ears” move slightly. They twitch and turn in the direction of my car. I pull closer. “Cwazy Wabbit” looks dead at me.
Compliments lift spirits, ages you nicely
Compliment someone today. Tell ’em how nice they look.
Better yet, tell someone you meet what movie star they look like.
Secret code broken by number of rings
I’d ring twice, hang up, then call back immediately.
Hearing the signal, my friend would pick up, knowing he was being called by someone other than a bill collector. Or a “process-server.” Learned to do this while growing up in Brewerytown, a working-class section of Philadelphia, and continued it following a divorce and working as a newspaper reporter.
Who needs glasses to see your self within?
- I wear glasses. Well, I don’t wear ’em, even though I should.
They pinch me. At the bridge of the nose. Cause an irritation to my left ear. Make me feel less good-looking, less acceptable. (As if I really need to be more acceptable nowadays!)
Healthy disdain for $$$ really not healthy
Could never be a good businessman. Did not love money enough.
Never put wealth at the top of a “to do” list of things to achieve. Oh, I wanted to make a comfortable living and get a nest egg for the future. But I had no drive to accumulate big bucks.
You man a job right, job’ll right the man
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
Another Reality exists within the here and now, if I can disengage and step out of the World that I am sleep-walking in.
Short Stature Grows Larger With Love
Mr. Nice Guy wins, but loses in the end
I’ve had to push you from my mind, to save my mind. Get you out of my Life to live my Life.
A taste of heaven offered here on earth
Pizza pie and a chocolate milkshake.
Each drew me like an oasis to a man walking alone in a desert.
Meditation helps writer find a gem within
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.
Dance with Achilles Contoveros again
“To Dance with My Father Again.”
What I wouldn’t give, to dance with my father again. Or, more likely, watch others — what seemed like the whole Greek nation — dance with him. My father was a dashing man on his feet. Could pass for the brother of the actor Errol Flynn, always taking the lead for what I called the “Greek Snake Dance (See you tube).”
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Hard to believe it got up for TV viewing
“It’s hard to get up for it, sometimes.”
As soon as I saw a videotape of myself mouthing those words on television, I knew I had crossed the line.
But, nobody caught it. Never put infertility and sexual intercourse together to catch the play on words that somehow slipped out, with me never actually intending to say what I had just said.
Injustice should make us all ‘go berserk’
“Going Berserk” has always had a wicked appeal to me.
For brief moments, I’d go “mad,” and not care for my safety or well-being, but focus instead on the object causing a “crazy re-action” on my part. It was as if a volcano had erupted and I wanted to punish those perceived as evil-doers. Might have had a bit of “religious fervor” involved, as I saw myself correcting a wrong or an injustice with a quick upper-cut to the jaw.
Swimming makes the heart ‘go’ fonder
“Smile, breathe and go slowly”~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Feel like I stepped from suspended animation and awoke on a star-ship outside the Galaxy where I’m “floating” majestically on a current of the air.
Can A Wrong Ever Serve Into A Right?
“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.
Going AWOL helps a boy grow into a man
Went AWOL while a private in the US Army in 1968.
Continue reading500th milestone within October 1st reach
Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord,
I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord,
I’m five hundred miles away from home.
Conceal the word until all are ready for it
Wearing a chest full of ribbons on a khaki-colored shirt with Russian-like epaulets on the shoulders, I grew lots of attention at the Russian Appreciation Day at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia yesterday.
Truth once hidden usually surfaces later
“State Trooper Using Hypnosis for Investigation“
That was the headline for one of the strangest cases I ever reported.
Seeking the ‘Bliss Queen’ in Philadelphia
I wanted so much to be the Queen’s Concert.
But at what age? What stage of her life called out to me the most, as we, the audience members, watched her grow into a Spiritual goddess, one I desired to be like, to become with as One?
Buy yourself a friend – read his good word
“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.”
The Great Awakening can be hard on a guy
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.
Swimming meditation floats troubles away
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.
Saying ‘I Love You’ Over & Over Again!
“I love you” was not in the way you said it, but how you said it.
Recovering from my road rage confession
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 . . . . . .
Living like I’m one of ‘All God’s Creatures’
I dove into a World of Make Believe, changing from one past life to another while underwater and on land yesterday.
Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’
Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday.
A tough road makes journey a little easier
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.
Continue readingImpeachment turns a loser into a winner
Each day for twenty years, the spirit of Don Quixote welcomed me into my law office. This picture hung above my desk reminding me that it was the “impossible cases” a good public defender relished. The ones you didn’t expect to win, but somehow, now and then, you’d convince a jury to see the facts your way, which in most cases, was the right way.
Continue readingBestowing spirit & essence to a new friend
I told someone I’d give up my life for them. And, I meant it.
I was so low, I was willing to forego this body and offer my spirit to someone, anyone who’d have a greater chance of gaining enlightenment than me. Give to someone who was nearing to what Kabbalists call the final “correction” of all of one’s egotistical desires.
Forgive warrior’s defense of the sensitive
You invited me to your House, and I broke confidence in you.
Walk a Labyrinth full with love & no desire
All I want to do, is Give. Not Take.
Give without seeking a thing in return. Oh, I’ll get pleasure out of the deal. But I’ll put a lid on it. Screen out the joy that can overwhelmingly fill me, and direct the bulk of that feeling to another. Deflect it to one needing nurturing that only a mother’s love could offer her youngest child.
Amy, you smile & I find pure paradise!
Thank You Amy. Let the Good Times Roll!
Sit and do nothing, but only do it better
Sit and do Nothing — Better.
You don’t know how hard this is for me. To do nothing! Forget about the better part. The word “better“ implies you’ve been able to do “nothing” sometime in the past. Or that you can do nothing “better” than someone else.
Pitching pennies provides pinch per police
- Corner Lounging. Police picked us up more times than I can remember simply for hanging out and making a little too much noise, perhaps, with a little too much profanity.
- I didn’t. Use profanity. Not much. And when I did, I think it meant something. Not like today, when the “F” word is bantered around too freely. And way too often. And, that’s in so-called “polite society.”
Radio Plays to My No. 1 Heart’s Desire
Music touched an emotional chord in me that may have been different from most folks.
Abraham, Martin & John Live On Within
Rain pours on me outside, while soft music warms me on the inside. “Abraham, Martin, and John,” the song, plays from this relatively new gadget called a portable, hand-held, transistor radio.
Guest Post’s Embarrassing Announcement
What’s the difference between Shame and Embarrassment? Are they joined at the hip? Like twins?
The shame of it all starts an upward ascent
Be careful what you wish for. You could get your heart’s desire and wish you had never asked for it in the first place.
College Life repeats itself each generation
Sat next to a long hair, skinny, “Hippie” guy at an orientation in a community college yesterday, and felt thrown back to a time years ago, sitting cross-legged on the floor across from a similar fellow wondering what the hell I was doing there.
Attract Them to a Higher Calling in Life
St. Michael strikes and heals all at once
I felt like Alice falling in the hole after chasing a White Rabbit. But, falling “upwards” defying the laws of Gravity and Rational Sense.
Act of Contrition Helps Regain My Purity
Got Blanket Absolution yesterday. And, it felt so good, I became a 12-year-old again. Ready to face the world with a clear conscious and a pure heart.
I See You for the Very First Time, Don’t I?
- I see You more and more each day. All I need do, is look for You. Kinda scrunch up my mind a bit, squint, and let my Self go.
Try to “feel” You. And I do! All Blessed You. In just the right amount to fill a soul that wishes it were bigger, larger to contain more and more of Your Love that’s omnipresent, all around me. And in me.
I ‘intend’ nothing but positive bestowals
How do you explain “unexplainable” events?
Willie, 20 years later, I still mourn you
Although you “passed on” after your 17th birthday, you’ll remain alive for me forever. I see you in my dreams. I “feel” your presence as I walk with you, watch you, and hear the footsteps on the steps leading from the dining room to the bedroom upstairs.
Suffocate? Let go of control & open up self
Grace suffocated and I retaliated by smashing my ego to help free up her passageway during group meditation this morning.
Pain endures from struggles in a ‘Back’ Life
The pain feels like someone thrust a spear in my back. That I was in battle. At the city of Troy. Fighting with fellow Greeks for the foolish prize of a minor King’s run-a-way, but lovely, wife, Helen. She with a face that will launch a thousand ships.
Hawk carries HSPs to their highest ideals
The hawk glides across the sky, soaring high above us as the first person to notice shouts, “there’s one.” Like children, we stare toward the heavens, at the beautiful blue sky. A normally humid August has graced us with a mild and glorious summer day, blending light breezes and the scent of flowers that drift our way from below the wooden platform we look out from.
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School boss drives Vietnam veteran nuts
Felt I was back in war maneuvering through a mine field called the new educational system yesterday.
Continue readingUnexplained ‘Pull’ leading me back Home
A gentle “pull” manifested in my Life recently. I noticed it last night while driving and wanted no more than to live in each passing moment.
‘I confess!’ I cut school with Franny O
I’m going to confess. I played hooky in seventh grade and refused to “squeal” on the kid I stayed out of class with that day.
Nature Provides Bird’s Eye View of Living
There’s a true “pecking order” that’s developing in my back yard. And all I have to do is be patient and watch it unfold moment by moment.
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Kabbalah ‘Receiving’ Helps Me in ‘Giving’
You can’t make promotions your life’s goal
You can keep the promotion. Wouldn’t take it, even if offered. Not if I have to make “achievements” my aim, to set a new “goal” in Life.
“Start Over’ the instant you feel a need to
Start over. That’s all I gotta do . . . Say it to myself and simply “START OVER!”
Lying in bed with one crazy, mixed up thought after another, I told myself to “start over.” Did not know what I meant. But I did mean it.
Angels Appear as Earthly Messengers
(This story was created in October 2009 but not published in its entirety until now.)
It’s just like heaven . . . Being here with you . . . You’re like an Angel. Too good to be true. When You are near me. My heart skips a beat. I can hardly stand on. My own two feet. Because I Love You; I Love You, I Do. ‘Angel Baby’. My ‘Angel Baby’. Oh, Ooh, I Love You, Oh, Ooh, I Do . . . No One Could Love You . . . Like I Do!
Concealing & finding Self –a life-long effort
Hello! Anybody here? It sure is dark inside. Like a huge cavern with hardly any light.
Falling in love with the Love of Your Life
Fell head over heels in love the past few weeks. Didn’t want to do it. Had always gotten “hurt” in relationships, knowing from the start they’d come to an end one day. Love seemed to change that way. To peter out. End not with a “bang,” but with a “whimper.”
Nysiros holds secrets of life and death
I’ll never know what drove Anthoula to take her own life.
Angels re-enter when you’re open to ’em
I started seeing angels again. No, hold off on the straight jacket, don’t reserve a room at an asylum. I’m not totally crazy. Yet.
‘Open your eyes’ to journey of Lifetime
The snake slithered along the bed of the forest, winding its way beneath a pine tree. Climbing upwards, it twirled around the trunk, moving ever so slowly, centimeter after centimeter, as it sought the “higher ground” where it could shimmy onto a tree branch and make its way closer to my eye level.
Women Elevate all our Desire for God
Did Creator make a mistake in His design of women’s “purpose?“
Are they on the earth to simply guide men to the Light above and share in the Love such a man might bring back with him to our earthly plane?
Can ‘spiritual indigestion’ be all that bad?
Thought I was dying Monday morning.
Just finished eating a plateful of scrambled eggs, bacon and home fries, topped off with a honey bun, and had started in on a second cup of coffee when: “BAM.”
Imagine how to ‘Copy’ & ‘Paste’ a Graphic
(How to insert graphics into your Writing)
So, you want to know how to add a “picture” to the story?
Ok, I think I can help you.
Accident leads to a fowl, self-discovery
Hearing the screech of tires, I react quickly. Push foot to the brake and veer to the right of the car in front of me.
Weekend Euphoria Needs Time to Set
The Greatest Weekend — No. II
* Uncertain if my true love would ever be mine, I fell to my knees . . . praying for her affection. It was . . . a Sunday.
When Coincidence Occurs, Look Out & In!
Uncanny coincidences kept cropping up yesterday as I attended a gathering of one of those “Meet-Up” groups.
Got eerie, downright mystical-like, if you know what I mean.
Conspiracy of Love to Heal Us All, Now!
Glenda “laid hands” on me; I lost track of who I was and why!
I had stubbed my toe helping three guys move a heavy piano from one section of the room to another, when a leg got too close to the big toe, and I yelped like an injured animal, but held onto my section, maneuvering the mahogany-framed instrument to the center of this place of worship.
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‘Five Jaunts’ create a life-long harmony
The bottle of Listerine spilled, and the car smelled of antiseptic. A ‘57 Chevy should never suffer such an indignation.
Monkey See, and, Alas, Monkey Will Do!
The fool showed up uninvited to the Wildwood, NJ, beach house and created a mess good folk hardly talk about now-a-days. He sat “Indian style” on the living room rug with Billy Kane, both about the same age, 18 to 19. There were two or three other guys drinking beer as Billy passed ‘em around.
Spiritual wars should end at a dinner table
Psalm 46:
9 — He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10 — Be still and know that I am God.
‘None else besides Him,’ ‘none besides me!’
“There is none else besides Him.”
“If I’m not for me, who is for me?”
“There is none else besides me.”
Looking for Self among all the wrong cards
Who am I? Am I this body, this mind, this soul? Perhaps, all three?
Even on bad days, music can lift me higher
“The Crossing” filled me with sounds of the Rapture last night as I surrendered to the harmonies some 25 voices offered me on entering Heaven. Continue reading
Won’t let go until animal instinct tells me to
My jaws clamp down, insuring I won’t let go of what I just uncovered. It’s taken me for what seems forever to get my teeth around it, and I won’t give up without a fight. Even if I get kicked. Again. Square in the face where it hurts, but I’ll get over it.
To Helen of T, whose Heart Just Loves
I know of what you speak, about your ache.
I close my eyes and I feel the longing, the yearning that cannot be quenched, no matter what liquid I try to fill myself with. It’s just a substitute, a “pretender” that does little if anything to cool the fire, the pulsating magma that enflames a wound that seems never to heal in a million years.
Hello! What would God do if He was you?
Wouldn’t it be great to make a phone call and ask a receptionist to put you through to the Creator? The next time you have a problem, and you want to do the right thing, you could simply dial “G . . . O . . . D” long distance.
Oleg guides me on a “Make ‘Believe’ ” path
Once upon a time . . .
- I never met or knew anyone by the name of “Oleg.” If I heard the name in conversation, I’d conjure up someone strong as a tree and just as resilient, able to withstand the heavy winds and wildest rains, while gently offering shade to those seeking a trunk to lay a weary back upon.
I delete persons withholding ID from me
Unknown Writer Gets Kicked Out of My Mail
Unconditional love; language we all know
(The baby looked up and, for the first time, acknowledged the Presence of another Being.
Unconditi0nal Love Was Beaming
Labyrinth opens a hidden maze inside me
Walked a Labyrinth and stepped into Vietnam last night.
Trouble is . . . I liked it. Did not want to leave the maze despite what lay ahead. Strangely, I felt “safe” there. Secure in my “skills.” Didn’t want to come home. Just like years earlier.
See you in a ‘next life’ Sombitch Rooster
(Cont’d from series on a-mean-rooster)
Dropped Sombitch Rooster off in a wooded area near a weed and gravel-covered path leading to an Urban Homestead with rows of corn in what appeared to be a good-sized farm enclosed by a six-foot “mesh” fence and a locked gate. Before that, I removed the cage holding the chickens and young roosters from the back of my car, opened the door of the cage, and planned to throw the six fowl over the fence.
Animals feel freed after Rooster’s absence
An eerie silence greeted me as I opened my bathroom door, stepped inside, and looked at the window facing the yard. I had just woken up. This, the first morning without a rooster in my daily life.
Always keep an eye out for mean roosters
He flew at my head and clawed at my eye. Blood seeped out the left side of the nose, cheek, and the right ear, where the rooster attacked, getting in one last “lick” at me.
Speaking truth ain’t easy but always right
“What’s wrong with the Truth?” the White Knight asked.
“The truth shall set him free,” the Black Knight added.
Reading and writing open different ways
Who are we but a bunch of words? Letters strung together, broken up in efforts to make sense of a message we try to convey.
Revenge could change, once ‘you’ change
Never thought “revenge“ had anything good to say about itself. It’s a negative trait. Falls in with Anger, Rage and “getting even.”
Soft pretzels, a Philadelphia comfort food
“You want mutard?,” the Pretzel Man would ask as he took your nickel and broke off three little “figure eight” soft pretzels. “Yes,” I’d say, mouthwatering for a topping that would make Philadelphia soft pretzels one of the great snacks of the Western World.
Step into a reality governed only by ‘Now’
Imagine there were Two Realities.
The one you see, hear and experience daily. And another one, where you pass through a veil that causes Amnesia once you step all the way through. You no longer have a past. You have no concern for the future, since you’ve accepted the fact that all you really need in this “New” world will be provided.
Taking First Steps on the Kabbalah Path
Let me give all of my Blog post readers a hint at what my next Spiritual Journey will Involve:
Continue readingGoin’ to farm; pick blueberries barefooted
Cousin Rosemarie Lieb.
You opened my heart to something I closed years ago.
Not ready to look inside. Almost, but not just yet.
Admiration Pours out from my Cousin’s Heart
“He wrote speeches for the governor,” I heard you whisper to our Cousin John Westergom of whom I have not spoken more than 20 words in the past 40 years. I detected a hint of, I don’t know, admiration or acknowledgment of an achievement I don’t normally dwell on, one I almost forgot. You spoke of something I had tried to forget. My past.
Don’t want to look at it. Or focus on it, the so-called achievements, that is. My future’s going to be so much brighter. The best years of my life are still ahead. Don’t want to sit on my laurels as if Life has passed me by, following a “retirement” of sorts with this PTSD disability. I still hope to do so much more and give plenty of myself to humanity, if only in some humble way.
Fellowship Allows me to Write a Speech for Governor
You reminded me of something my mother might have said with pride . . . that her son, Michael J Contos, had gotten a Finnegan Fellowship to study state government in Pennsylvania, thereby insuring a dinner at an awards banquet with then PA Governor Milton J Shapp.
I had studied journalism at the Community College of Delaware County, and was placed in the “public relations” division of Penn DOT, the state department of transportation, where I wrote a speech for the governor, several press releases and provided the “voice over” for a television newscast introducing new buses that “kneeled” to let persons with wheel-chairs enter public transit buses.
“This is Michael Contos, WGOL, Harrisburg,” I said in my one and only broadcast news report.
Governor Uses Each Word Verbatim
It was an achievement, writing for the governor. He used the speech verbatim, and I made copies for my resume of “news clippings.” Never did get a copy of the voice-over. The VCR was not in wide use — if in use at all — in the early ’70s.
I wanted to tell you, “It was no big deal.” The kid from a tough Philadelphia neighborhood, Brewerytown, made good despite his working-class roots. You see, I simply dug out a copy of an earlier speech the governor had given, brought it up to date, and put a new spin on it by adding a few of my words that “Democrats and Republicans alike will join in the celebration” for the construction feat.
Also wanted to tell you I wrote a fictional short story that summer, two years out of the Vietnam War. The writing got a second-place award in an Altoona, PA, contest. (Again, no “biggie,” even though it got coverage at Temple University when a teacher published the news in the school’s “house organ.” That’s newspaper jargon for a company-operated newsletter.)
Trying to Become ‘Worthy’ of My Goals
You’re the only one of my extended family I feel such a “Motherly” connection with, if that is the right word for it. The type of connection I denied myself growing up, for fear of resting before I could reach some goal, some summit I wanted to ascend to prove I was . . . worthy . . . as a person . . . as a man.
I missed out. Stayed focused too much and too long on nothing but achievements. Now, I want to share those stories I minimized in the past; I didn’t want anyone to think I got a “Big Head.” Still don’t, and that’s one reason why I’ve been reluctant to share. Afraid I’ll see how unimportant it really was . . . that I was just chasing windmills, if you know what I mean.
Want to visit the farm where Aunt Betty and Uncle Lenny showed us so much love; want to walk barefoot in the sandy roads leading to nearby Atlantic City. And pick lots of blueberries until the proverbial cows come home. Thanks for keeping the light on for this drifter, this black sheep of the family. Hope there’s still time enough for us . . .
Explore the stillness found deep within you
I find a Vibrant Life in Stillness.
I “Come Alive” inside, as my body comes to a complete rest and I let the mind follow suit. Sound boring? It’s anything but! And it’s been one of the toughest things I’ve ever attempted.
Couldn’t do it some 30 years ago when I tried to “halt” my active state of mind. Thought I “got through” and tamed the busy monkey once or twice, but it was wishful thinking on my part.
Renewal can come Once a Month in Life
“Once a Month, You Deserve to Die.”
Bizarre! Is this just a Curse?
Or a Wish for Good Fortune?
Not sure where this came from. Was meditating on the subject of “stillness,” and tracing my awareness of the world around and inside, when these words “arose.”
Spirituality’s fun, whether you like it or not!
Something’s wrong. I shouldn’t enjoy this much fun in Life.
Laughing so hard, the five of us had to hush up, quiet down to prevent diners at the other restaurant tables from staring at our ruckus.
What caused all the belly laughs and guffaws? God. Well, let’s say the Spirit of God. How about something ‘Spiritual, but not Religious?’ Would you believe “Mystical?”
A Hagel/Westergom union fits my granny
The only grandfather I ever knew was a hobo.
He rode the rails from East to West Coast, eating chicken and other foods he’d “gather” during the years crossing this great land, even ending up in Alaska, where he prospected for gold.
Don Quixote battles PTSD in Philly courts
I never felt more like Don Quixote than when I represented a woman charged with a crime.
Contoveros 
