Match: Bringing Heart and Will into Alignment - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gunilla Norris has published eleven children's books, one book of poetry, and several books on spirituality including: Being Home, Becoming Bread, Inviting Silence, A Mystic Garden, Simple Ways, Sheltered in the Heart, Match, Embracing the Seasons and Companion on the Way.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

“The great Catholic author Thomas Merton has said, ‘a spiritual life is a disciplined life.’ To open to our full spiritual possibilities requires dedicated practice. In Match, Gunilla Norris offers an exceptionally beautiful and surprising new form of practice. It has all of the best and most essential components of classical spiritual practice: it is appealingly simple, practical, honest and real. Ms. Norris creates for us a safe and sacred container of great beauty into which we can pour our longing for spiritual awakening. Contemplatives of all stripes will be grateful for this gift!”

—Stephen Cope, author of The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling

“Match will forever change the way you think about re-igniting your spark. Once again, Gunilla Norris has gifted us with her wisdom—this time with clear, engaging and inspired practices to rekindle our soul’s longing and our heart’s deepest desires. I’m in the business of lighting sparks, and this book goes to the very top of my recommended reading list!”

—Debbie Phillips, Founder, Women on Fire®

“Fire is an archetypal metaphor for the spirit within and that is where it usually ends. No longer is that the case. Gunilla Norris has created a simple and profound 90 day journey that transforms this metaphor into both a spiritual path and a sacred art form. A spiritual path in that it will deepen and nourish your practice as a seeker of inner truth. An art form in that like alchemy, it will transform you into fire itself.”

—David Gershon, author of Social Change 2.0 and co-director of Empowerment Institute

“Gunilla Norris is an alchemist who transmutes ordinary daily actions of living into spiritual practices aligning heart and soul. Match is Gunilla’s latest offering especially suited for leaders who seek to act and live mindfully, yet who may struggle to prioritize their own mindfulness practices in the midst of unrelenting demands. Through an ingenuous and original process of both instantaneous and long term results, Match is a tool that is unsurpassed in igniting the heart and soul of leadership to make a positive difference while tending the interior fire.”

—Ellen Wingard, author, Mindfulness Based Leadership Consultant, Board Chair, World Pulse Media

“Match has my vote for best spiritual practice book of the year. Having had the pleasure of reading Gunilla Norris’s trademark brand of household wisdom for years, I now know how she does it. Match reveals the deeply personal, profoundly creative, easy-to-do daily spiritual practice that has carried the author through decades of authentic living. Reminiscent of the simple, bedrock commitment of the ancient monastic traditions, yet powerfully fresh in its fiery, modern approach, Match offers an extraordinary opportunity to join in a spiritual phenomenon that is bound to spread like wild fire.”

—Kate Sheehan Roach, editor, Contemplative Journal

“…Self-improvement readers all too often receive books of admonitions that focus more on end results than the actual nuts and bolts of the process itself. Match is all about firing up a course of action and committing to its enactment: and if 90 days of focused meditations and reflection sounds easy—it’s not. …This is only the beginning of a lifelong journey. …Those ready to undertake such a journey will find no better starting point than Match.”

—D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

For many of us, there comes a time when we experience a nameless yearning. We feel that there is more to life than we are living. We sense there is a meaningful and timeless reality within, behind, and beyond our day-to-day experiences. Sometimes we try to give this reality a name—God, Spirit, Love, Life, Presence, Intelligence, Reality, Being. We know that ultimately it cannot be named or defined. It is too vast. But it can be experienced.

Though we mostly ignore it in the stress and press of life, the yearning may persist, and we come to realize that we want to have a conscious connection to that vastness in which our lives take place and by which we are mysteriously supported. We also want to manifest our contribution to that vastness, to live more authentically. It is then we begin a search for a way to learn to be more focused, to live more of our truth, and to bring our will and heart into union. 

There are many traditions that offer ways to grow as persons. We want our spirit and our way of life to be all of a piece. To choose a path can be difficult. The method described in this book will not suit everyone, but it may be a start, a spark, and a catalyst. It is concrete and therefore doable.

We have met people whose lives seem to be lit from within. We can feel how they have somehow faithfully attended to the particulars of their unique calling and are drawing strength and insight from an unseen center. We can sense that their will and their hearts are in alignment. It is towards such embodiment that our own journey urges us. This book seeks to provide a concrete method to learn to live our heart’s desire, to contribute to the whole, and to grow.

Ninety days is a serious commitment that often leads to further and deeper practice. Though this book is about a particular practice it is my hope to bring awareness to what is needed in any practice. 

The book is in two parts. The first part begins with a question: Why Practice? In this section thoughts are shared about the benefits of committing to a deep intention. The bare bones of this particular method are also described. In Creating the Hearth, personal and emotional reasons for practice are discussed as well as possible inner preparations for practice. In Learning to Be One Hearted ideas are given about how to better unify one’s self. On The Way looks at aspects that a practitioner might find helpful on the journey. Tending the Fire focuses on what is needed to sustain a practice. Banking the Fire discusses the fortitude needed for a continuous commitment to practice. Sharing the Fire is concerned with the benefits of working with others. Collecting the Embers is about the gained joy and wisdom of practice. The second part of the book, Living the Fire, is composed of reflections for the ninety days of practice. 

Many people have used this method and found it of help. My sincere hopes are that this will be true for you, and that you may journey to your heart’s home where love is both the end and the beginning.