Bøker av Bob Norton

The rushing around we experience in our growth years is replaced in our contraction years by the wisdom that rushing gets you nowhere. In our contraction years, we deliberately take more time over doing things, not merely because we can but rather because it is more enjoyable and rewarding. Because we have the time, the contraction years are also a period of many reflections one of which for me was: would I live my life in the same way if I had my time over again? My musing did not take me down the route of fantasy choices such as intrepid explorer, pioneering astronaut or multinational business tycoon. It wasn't that sort of reflection. Instead I lingered on those personal foibles, preoccupations or prejudices that have always stayed at the back of my mind but now, in the slowing down years, have come strongly to the fore, edging towards answers. Let me give a few examples: - I always wondered why very few people listen to what others say as though they hear with ears tuned into a different wavelength. Different? Or just their own wavelength? - I questioned why people needed to know what I did for a living. Sadly, of course, they needed to label me so that they could classify me away, never bothering nor wishing to find out if there was anything deeper than the temporary superficiality that seemed to satisfy them. Perhaps I just never felt happy with labels. They always seemed inadequate. What you do for a living doesn't address the totality of what or who you are. - Most of the people I had known were consumed with the hope that tomorrow would be better than today and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Others were more concerned with changing the past to obviate their worries or guilt. All a total and avoidable waste of time. As you grow older you do get more from being in the present, knowing and accepting that you can't change the past, and the future will be only as it will be... with a little help from yourself. - It was always a mysterious imponderable to grasp how some learning turned into belief and other learning turned to disbelief. During my later years, a lot of my earlier learning fell by the wayside to be replaced by my own truth, my own answers. And so back to those slowing down years of reflection and self-indulgence. One self-indulgence I had in particular concerned getting these imponderables, that I had pondered over the years, down on paper - a task I asked my grand-daughter, Sophia, to help me with. Sophia had turned out to be an appropriate and beautiful choice of name. It means wisdom. At the tender age of 11 years old, she demonstrated far more wisdom than many people I knew. When Sophia arrived with her parents to stay for a few weeks, I asked her if she would help me with my memoirs - the term I was then using to call these musings or reflections. Well, perhaps it amounted to more than just a little help. But her infectious grin gave me all the response I needed. When I was telling Sophia what was on my mind, she asked me what I was going to call these memoirs. I had to think. What were they about? They were about what people did or didn't do, about what they thought or didn't think, about what they saw or didn't see, about the way they behaved or didn't behave. In fact, they were about the way people are, or are not. All that seemed a bit complicated so then I just decided to call them the Sophia Dialogues. Finally, Sophia's contribution to the dialogues, as you will see, and I hope you agree, more than merited her place in the title.

Leaves in the Stream is the story of the early growth of a community set in the near future after the breakdown and collapse of the current way of life as we have known and seen it develop in the west. The members of the community are challenged and motivated by certain values which portray and enhance their respect for themselves, for each other and for everything - especially Nature - around them. But it's not all plain sailing as they find themselves caught in the middle between doing things and getting them done, and they find that some values require more than mere determination to assimilate.The leading protagonist is a character called Little Bear who has been tasked with guiding and nurturing the community through a series of challenges or growing pains. Little Bear is in tune with the worlds of Spirit and of Nature. For her, every thing has its own spirit, its own life force. She shows how, being completely in tune with this natural, spiritual energy, she can call on it for guidance to help the growing community to be able to see further and understand more about the natural forces in play on the Earth. The story revolves around the unfolding of the challenges that the community members face in living and working together according to new versions of old values. Much depends on if and how they will overcome the challenges they face, since it is the 'if' and the 'how' which will decide their future. The story culminates in their greatest test which will determine the fate of the community.

Many people spend their lives in a state of unconsciousness suffering from excessive and invasive random thoughts that assail and clutter the mind. Such is the persuasive nature of this clutter that many of us take our thinking to be who we really are. As we grow, we lose sight of who we might really be as we unconsciously absorb and adopt the rituals and dictates of finding our place in conventional society. Our background, education and work shape and mould us into soldiers of the status quo, a wholly man-made construct which obligates all participants to accept its agendas, its behaviours and its truths. In many life experiences we find that our instinct rails against so many of society's falsehoods imposed, nonetheless as they are, as the only way to be. We then find ourselves adopting roles in order to cope and become forever busy keeping up with the pace of life in all its pretence and illusion.Pathways to Stillness seeks to identify and peel back these layers of illusion in order to be able to learn who we really are, instead of who we think we are. A mix of dialogue, short story and reflective narrative, Pathways to Stillness takes the reader down different routes to stilling the mind-chatter, realising the importance of stopping negative thinking, re-connecting with Nature, shedding unconsciousness for greater awareness, and finding ways to inner peace and calm - stillness.The major protagonist, Robert, appears in the role of seeker of stillness, finding his lifelong beliefs, ideas and principles gradually dismantled by Jonathan, a former mentor (Two Strangers One Soul, 2010). The discoveries he experiences - a combination of revisiting past experiences that won't go away and letting stillness embrace him instead of searching for it - go hand in hand with seeing all too familiar things with new eyes. He becomes aware, on his pathway to stillness, that when he changes the way he looks at things, the things he looks at seem to change.Pathways to Stillness is both a novel and step-by-step guide which gently leads the reader in the removal of unconscious illusion and the search for that elusive inner peace, free of worry, anxiety, guilt and fear.