Instructions for Living a Life

Instructions for Living a Life:

Pay Attention.

Be Astonished.

Tell About It.

—Mary Oliver

“Let my life be a never-ending search for truth,” I wrote in my journal shortly after starting university at age twenty-eight. I was giddy with the excitement of a new learning adventure that would take me down roads I could not even have imagined then. It was a winding path marked by achievement and loss, mystical experience and spiritual awakening.

Like the tip of an iceberg, visions, dreams, and synchronicities were evidence of what lay beyond the visible surface of my everyday life. They led me back to a homeland I never knew, a place of spectacular natural beauty and ancient wisdom that only open eyes could see, and a mind and heart made wiser could understand.

Along the way I would shed many aspects of my old self and discover a deeper, more connected way of being in the world. A growing awareness of the consciousness of all things transformed me. I became more aligned with my spiritual nature and instinctual knowing, the truest kind of homecoming—a journey of discovery that never ends.

This story demanded to be written. Bringing it to paper, which took several years, gave it form and meaning. I began to see how things fit together, and as I wrote was often surprised with unexpected gifts of insight. The excavating of memory also brought to the surface emotions I had buried, gave them breath, and helped me heal.

For the longest time, the shape of the story was elusive. It refused to be defined, and its parameters shape-shifted with every attempt to nail it down. The story had an energy and momentum of its own, and could not be rushed because there was more yet to unfold. I began to see that my life as it was being lived was the story and an invisible rudder was steering the course of its emergence...

...Throughout the story, you will see how the place that called me home is as integral as the journey itself. Once upon a time, long-ago, all the landmass on Earth was connected; the most recent time in a supercontinent called Pangaea. "The Rock" (Newfoundland) tells the story of how continents collided and separated over millions of years. I see in the Earth’s evolutionary history of separation and reunification a perfect allegory for the shift of consciousness I experienced and which I believe is our collective birthright and destiny...

An except from the Introduction of the upcoming book, Return to Pangaea: A Shamanic Journey Back to Newfoundland Roots, by Alison Normore, Ph.D. Coming October, 2017.