AWAKENING

AWAKENING by Joseph Tom Riach

Dawn’s first glimmer of light glanced into the bedroom in company with a cool morning air. The breeze brushed my chest with the softness of a mandolin lovingly strummed. Erna, her back bared to the open window, felt it too. She murmured a soft moan of appreciation. Slowly we awoke.

Avocado, strawberries, rye bread, olive oil and spring water followed our rising – subtle stimulation of taste to supplement our stirring from slumber. On the terrace, shielded from the sun still low and red to the east, we lingered long, unwilling to release ourselves from the languor of night fantasies and the lazy opening strands of day.

Why move? Whatever awaited further on in time, however enticing, could not surpass the idyll of the moment.

Within that realisation lies the source of true happiness. Joy is not life as in a perpetual belly laugh. Sure, that is fun. I’d recommend that you do it heartily and often. True happiness is the contentment deep in your spirit which embraces you unflinchingly at all times.

At some unexpected moments you feel it wrap itself around you, cling to your being and envelope your very soul as if in a warm chocolate goo. Yes, happiness is sticky! Once found, your inner self will not easily let it go.

Seek out such happiness. Look for it in doing the things for which you have the greatest passion. Not only will that please you, it will please others and inevitably help them in some way way in their lives.

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Doing what you love always rubs off on other people. That is the first great realisation of true happiness.

The second great revelation – and it will find you – is coming to appreciate the value of life’s simple pleasures; those things which many regularly take for granted and fail to fully appreciate.

Are you daily grateful for fresh air, cool water, shelter, food, nature in all its forms, family, friends, love and, yes, laughter? You should be. They are not only the building blocks of happiness, they are the finished product. There is no further life experience beyond relishing these fundamentals from which to draw greater joy.

Understanding this gloriously simple reality, seeking it out and installing it in your life is a time of immense spiritual awakening. It is in fact, the greatest awakening of all. An awakening surpassing even the subliminal dawn of which I write.

I am Tom Riach. I live and write in the sunny south of Portugal. I hope you enjoyed this sample of my work. Find all my current titles (novels and ‘personal achievement’) at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other leading book stores. Click the image below.

© Joseph T. Riach 1998-present. All rights reserved.