Tag Archives: Spiritual

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.

Continue reading →

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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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.  

Continue reading →

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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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 →

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 →

Mother recalls son’s last ‘earthly’ words

By TEA

It was Saturday morning, May the 19th of 2012. I awoke that early morning feeling well rested. Since the beginning of the new year I had started working Monday thru Thursday, having Fridays off. In the past, when working a full week my Saturdays were spent sleeping in and catching up on the many hours of sleep lost during the week. 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 →

A Course of Love awakens love inside & out

The Beatles got it right in the 1960s.

“All you need is love.”

“Love is all there is.”

————–

I couldn’t agree with them more, particularly after experiencing the warm glow and gentle caress of a bunch of  lovers who helped me to open my foolish heart to “A Course of Love.” 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.

Continue reading →

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 →

PTSD undergoes a Shamanistic treatment

The shaman applied pressure with his fingers and thumbs to the side, back and front of my skull. He told me to let him know if he caused me any pain.

I felt some discomfort, but it wasn’t intolerable and so I said nothing and let him continue the process as I sat in a chair in front of more than a hundred people attending the symposium on “What is Healing? – Archaic Traditions Meet Ways of Experiencing Modern Consciousness Exploration and Psychotherapy.” He was the principal speaker, having taught the participants to dance and sing in two large circles in the room where we had met. Continue reading →

The back of the heart offers ‘Will to Love’

We’ve all experienced love in one form or another. Most remember the romantic love that may have flourished when we were young and felt the longing to receive the touch of love from another person.

Love also appeared in our lives as infants as our loving mother held us, cradling our small bodies with her hand behind the back of our necks. She held the spot where the brain and skull come into contact with the spinal cord, the neck area.

Jaya Herbst, a lecturer certified by the European Association  for Transpersonal psychotherapy – Eurotas, said there can be healing in the touch of one person upon another. But first there must be an intent, a “will” to love to help with the touch, be it to smooth the crying of a child or to hug a grown up who needs the physical contact to know all will be just right in that moment. 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 →

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 →

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 →

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!

Continue reading →

Death unfrightening once wisdom grows

Death doesn’t seem to scare me as much as it used to. I mean, I see it as a transition, and not an ending. In some ways, it will be a welcome “new adventure” if you think about it in spiritual terms.

No, I’m not talking about heaven and hell like the Catholic nuns and priests preached to me as a kid at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church where I served as an altar boy and wanted to be a priest until I discovered girls. I’m talking about a transition to a “way station,” a place where your spirit — or soul — ascends to meet with higher spirits or what some might call Ascended Masters. Continue reading →

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 →

Recalling some cool summers in the army

Summer always served as a “new beginning” for me when I was in the army. I got drafted on the Third of June and did my Basic Training in the hot, dry air of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I can’t tell you how many push-ups I did during the two-month training session as the meanest drill sergeant I ever seen brought fire to my poor soul by running me everywhere and cussing me out to force me into fighting shape. Continue reading →

The ‘Wisdom I was Born With” is in you

When I write, I try to tap into the child within. I try to “feel” something that I can share with another, be it humorous, educational or shocking. I have stories to tell from my past that brought me to this point, and I think they may help another to feel what I feel and to take action even if that action is simply to refrain from acting or even thinking.

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 →

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 →

Science Supports the Law of Attraction

If you didn’t know it by now, science supports the claims made by Abraham about the Law of Attraction and how it could help revitalize your life from this moment on.

That’s the word I got attending a workshop when a physicist met with Esther Hicks and explained how aligning with the Source, rather than resisting it, is based on the law of physics. “We knew that,” Abraham said speaking through Esther Hicks. Undaunted, the young man of science said that he realized it only after studying what the Law prescribes for all mankind. Align yourself with what you truly want in life and keep positive thoughts on achieving your heart’s desire. If you can imagine that happiness your achievement will provide, start with feeling that happiness now. Don’t wait for a result. Feel it in your gut, yor marrow, your very soul. Continue reading →

Meditation helps the Law of Attraction

“You don’t need to work when you are meditating,” Abraham told a young woman who was called to the stage to question the spirits about issues she was facing Saturday. She was among some 15 persons who shared the “hot seat” at the Renaissance Hotel near Philadelphia’s International Airport for a workshop.

The message resonated with me and I hope everyone of the more than 500 in attendance took it in and will try the 15-minute exercise once a day to see how easier it can be to get in touch with the Source energy within. Continue reading →

Abraham Calls Me to the Law of Attraction

I met Abraham up close and personal yesterday and I learned the universe had called me to study the Law of Attraction as voiced by Esther Hicks, the one who channeled for the spirits guiding us back to the Source within. Continue reading →

Gifts from within that we all might share

Ever wonder what you can do to be more like the person you always aspired to be? You know, the one you hoped you would grow up to be, but didn’t get the chance because life seemed to hit you upside your head and throw you off course? Continue reading →

Love is the only gift I can bestow on you!

What gifts can I offer the world today? What insight, wisdom, or thought could I bestow on others seeking the healing we need for our mutual pain and suffering?

I am no psychic. I’ve never seen an angel or felt the tingling sensation from a spirit wanting to use me to provide a message or a sign. I’m no medium. Continue reading →

Please take me back my love; I need you so!

I miss you. My God, how I have missed you!

It feels like forever since we’ve been together.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I know that it’s my fault. I walked out on you believing I could get along without you, without your guidance without your help. Without your love . . . Continue reading →

State of Our Spiritual Union is Flourishing

The State of Our Spiritual Union is flourishing.

Seeds planted in the 1960s have flowered, and the Age of Aquarius has finally dawned on the world, awakening many of us to a new way of living, a new way of forgiving. The first signs of this new enlightenment began in the 1990s as the Berlin Wall fell, God revealed secrets in the Celestial Prophecy and the mystical Wisdom of Kabbalah was made known to non-Jews and all women, regardless of age or religious backgrounds. Continue reading →

Sniper triggers nothing but bad memories

I never saw a sniper as a hero. I don’t think many Americans did either. That is, until someone made a movie about one of them that fought for “our side.” Continue reading →

Who had the biggest impact on your life?

The person who had the biggest impact on my life was my second wife. She had a 157 IQ, but never once acted as if she was better than me. She easily got angry at injustices, and would on occasion lash out against the hypocrisy of politicians, while helping the underprivileged and the rights of women in a male-dominated society. Continue reading →

It was me an enemy sniper was trying to kill

A Viet Cong sniper was trying to kill me. Some motherfucker hiding in the trees, the bushes, the triple-canopy jungle had just shot at my platoon. I thought he was shooting randomly, despite the debris from the ground, grassland and other tiny bits of rock that struck me from a bullet’s ricochets.

No. he was aiming at no one but me! It’s taken me more than forty years to figure that out. Continue reading →

What is awakening my senses now-a-days?

I got hit upside the head today.

Next, the sweet fragrance of roses mixed with just a slight tinge of oranges enticed my senses while meditating.

This followed the experience yesterday of missing keys mysteriously reappearing as I puzzled through my new life journey of “unnatural” awareness.

Continue reading →

Mystery key opens door to new adventure

A spirit touched me today. Or, rather, the spirit touched the pair of jeans I had worn the day before and left on a chair after removing them before going to sleep. When I awoke and put the jeans back on, I got the surprise of my life. Continue reading →

Healing others starts first with healing self

The guru then made the following announcement, quoting 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.

 There is no separation except in our own minds.

Continue reading →

Ithaca Mystical Insights — by Contoveros

An Odyssey begins and ends with a mystical adventure that finally takes you back to the home within. Follow the path to Ithaca for insights!

Continue reading →

‘Israel’ directs Francis “toward” the Creator

Kabbalah’s Definition of “Israel”

(From an excerpt of new book, St. Francis of Assisi, A Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty)

By Contoveros

Writing as Francesco di Bernadone

Continue reading →

Learning a ‘Little Greek’ from Francesco

What did I learn about Francis of Assisi while researching the facts about his life?

He wanted to grow up to be a crusader and fight in the Crusades which had gone on for some one hundred years when he was born in 1081 or 1082.

Francis fought in a battle between the city-state of Assisi and its neighboring town of Perugia, which sided with the nobility and wanted to continue with the feudal system. Continue reading →

At least, no one is shooting at me this time

(See Part One, “Cancer strikes . . .)

The train ride from home to the hospital was one of the longest trips of my life. I just knew I was going to die. I figured that the surgeon could not remove all the cancer during my operation 10 days earlier, and it finally struck me: I am a cancer victim!

The doctor never called me with the results from the operation in the Veterans Hospital of Philadelphia. I spent five days and four nights there, mostly recuperating from the surgery. When I left, I had hoped to hear from the physician, but  she didn’t call. I believed she was afraid to give me the bad news over the phone. Continue reading →

Riding high on the back of an amazon.com

Simply knowing that I wrote a book is one helluva experience.

Seeing it on amazon.com is breath-taking! Continue reading →

Contentment: Learning to be Content OK

Good enough is the lazy man’s way to enlightenment . . . There’s nothing more to do . . .  Your job is good enough . . . Your spouse is good enough . . .Your life  is good enough . . . Your meditation practice is good enough. . . You don’t need anything more, and what you now have is good enough. — This is all according to a young monk, – Ajahn Khemavaro, who spoke on Impermanence, in a 2008 presentation, “Everything Will Be alright.” Continue reading →

New bucket list headed by state of Alaska

North to Alaska!

That’s where I’m headed next week and I’ll start checking off the newest box of my “bucket list,” the list of things I want to do before I “kick the bucket.” Continue reading →

Ups & downs of life provide me lessons

When you’re down and feel like nothing, God is usually up to something just for you.

That’s a saying on a church sign outside of Philadelphia hat I edited and slightly changed and can safely say is now mine. Continue reading →

Growing up with Catholic Sisters (Nuns)!

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.” Continue reading →

Ithaca Insights serve up peace & calm

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.

Continue reading →

Meditate first and foremost each day!

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 →

Francis of Assisi; awakening him by a novel

I am about to be an author!

Well, a “published” author, that is . . .

I just learned that my book about Francis of Assisi, a historic novel, will be available at Amazon sometime in the next two months, September and October (2014). Writing it was a true labor of love. I mixed in Catholicism with Sufism and lots of Buddhism. I also introduced Francis, aka Giovanni di Bernadone, his real name by the way, to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and a belief in what I call “angel therapy.” Continue reading →

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

 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.

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. Continue reading →

The Enlightenment of a Dharma Listener

I’m down to just two more days now . . . Two more days in which to become enlightened through the 21-Day Meditation Experience of Deepak & Oprah. Today is the 20th Day. Tomorrow, I’m afraid, it will end for me and you.

No matter what happens though, I’ve been exposed to what Buddhists called the Dharma. That is, the “teachings” of meditation by Siddhartha Gotama, the person most of us call the “Buddha.”

It reminds me of a story I heard recently. It’s about a frog. Continue reading →

Journey Propels Me to the Lower World

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

Melanie sat on the couch to my right. We had already shared our brief journeys into the Middle World, the one that exists now on this plane. We were joyous to discover we both pictured the bright, bold red Cardinal as our favorite animal. Continue reading →

Hoping for a lofty goal, I write a lot & often

(Question 2 on Hope)
You may also have experienced this kind of hope, (See https://contoveros.wordpress.com/?p=12505&preview=true) but not thought of it in those terms. Think of a time when you felt sure you were going to attain a lofty goal, even though the path to the goal was not apparent. That is the hope that comes from your being. Describe this feeling of certainty in your journal. – Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Feeling Hope)

I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.

I needed and wanted to write a book. Continue reading →

Hope fills your presence and your future

We introduced a new understanding of hope today. We want to build a sense of hope that is a force of change that comes from a feeling of certainty and well-being within, rather than an anxious kind of hope that vaguely wishes for things to turn out well. Write about an experience you may have had with this stronger kind of hope. – Deepak Chopra (Day 6 — Feeling Hope) 

I don’t think you can have a future or any type of “end product” without hope. I see hope more as a process, a living force that flows from day-to-day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. We hope for something that will come into existence in some future time. Yet the feeling we get through the act of hope occurs in the present.

Continue reading →

Explosion shatters peace but calm prevails

Question 2 of 4 on “Feeling Peaceful”

Thinking of this same peaceful experience, imagine that feeling of calm becoming deeper and stronger within your soul to the point where nothing happening in the environment could shake it. Describe what that kind of peace would feel like physically, mentally and emotionally. How could this type of peace change your life? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)

Well, it would be hard to imagine my peace in Vietnam being any better than what it was that day. It could have very easily been shattered by gunfire. Worse yet, the peace could have been destroyed with my heart and my soul wounded by something called friendly fire.

That’s what happened during another incident while leading men on a search and destroy mission in what we called the “bush.” I had called in mortar fire on a suspected enemy location, but one of the rounds fell on my squad. Five soldiers were injured and I thank God that none were killed.

 (Please see Part 1 at:https://contoveros.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/peace-found-inside-middle-of-Vietnam-war/ /)

Continue reading →

Getting a good last laugh is so laudable

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

Continue reading →

Fuzzy needs Kabbalah Group to grow by

(Unpublished Kabbalah story from Feb. 18, 2011)

Fuzzy needs Group to glow bright

Fuzzy was a Fuzz Ball that wanted to give love to whom ever he met. It all started when he felt a point in the heart materialize, and a wish to bestow came over him.

He’d give love here, there, just about everywhere, every day to every body he came into contact with. After all, he had thousands of tiny fuzz balls to give away. He’d pluck ‘em from his round little body and pass them on trying to ease pain here, create a smile there. Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo done in 30 days, thank God

Just finished 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 →

Don’t eat all the hummus, Michael J

To      Michael J
From Melanie K
I had such a nice night. My favorite part was sitting outside talking on the bench. Who knew we would be together in such a situation?
    • the lovely garden beside a Thai Buddhist Temple 
    • the freshness of post-meditation
    • the purity of post-meditation
    • the high of talking dharma with a new friend Luke 
    • surrounded by Bonsai trees Continue reading →

A Call of Love to the Goddess Shekinah

I’ve been away from you 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 the 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 re-unite tomorrow.

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Angels appear when disbelief is suspended

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 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

(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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You’ve been Called; now Choose up Sides

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

I don’t know. If you would have asked me some five years ago, I’d tell you to hit the road. Jack. I’m not into any of that doomsday stuff. The so-called “Chosen People” were the Jews, Right? Look what happened to them. And don’t the Jehovah Witness folks believe that a couple hundred thousand of them will disappear from the earth at the time of the Rapture? And what about some old-fashioned Presbyterians? Didn’t Calvin or one of their leaders claim to be among the chosen few? Continue reading →

Universal Love grants me the touch of love

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. Continue reading →

I find my true nature when not looking

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

I am observing this thing for the first time.

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

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

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

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

— Melanie Kriebel 2013

Four Truths to Enoble the Strongest Mind

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

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

Sweat Lodge reveals many Creative Spirits

It took several hours for the effects of the Sweat Lodge ceremony to kick in, but when it did I realized the control I always thought I needed was not in my hands, but in what the Greeks called the Fates; the Christians, God; and the Buddhists, Karma.
A Divine source, referred to by some as the “Force,” the Divine Feminine,” the Creator, has dealt a hand to play with our own free will. We get to choose which cards to keep and the ones to discard. By standing pat or by seeking new ones to “change our luck” or to improve our hand, we cast our lot to the future. None of us expect to lose or to face tragedy or a financial crisis. We hope for improvement, to enrich ourselves through our card-playing skills and years of studying the game of life. Continue reading →

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

I am a shape-shifter. 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. Continue reading →

To be or not to be gay and in love again

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. Continue reading →

Divine Mother, spare the Fem-in-’em now

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 send another child into war that old men dream of winning as if playing games of adolescent ruffians. Continue reading →

Writing Tomorrow of Love You Feel Today

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

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

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

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

That’s when I planned to kill him. Continue reading →

Yearning for you grows with each touch

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

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

Saying ‘I Love You’ Twice Blesses Me!

“I Love.”

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

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

God needs no out-of-body experience

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 persons speak of  in hushed tones as if their trip from one place to another meant everything in the world.

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

Don’t let me believe in all my thoughts

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

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!

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 →

Happy Mothers’ Day, Poor Little Thérèse

How could I – a mother of two with a 10-year drug problem – be facing a life sentence for something stupid I did at the local Rite Aid store? Continue reading →