Our alignment. What is it I am here for?
(The Soul Purpose for the incarnation)

If you feel in your core that there is something you showed up for in this lifetime, trust that the intelligence that is guiding everything in the Universe is capable of letting it come through you if you surrender to the process, letting go of the expectation that it will show up the way you want it to.

Dr. Wayne Dyer often used the sentence: “Don’t die with your music still in you.”
Purpose, or the reason for existing, can be a tall order. Many people do not know what it is and what they want to do with the limited time they have here on earth. 
In the book “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy, which inspired Wayne Dyer’s statement, the protagonist’s last words before dying are: “What if my whole life has been wrong?”

I believe that purpose is similar to grace or being in love with someone. There is nothing we can do about it; it simply happens to us. Also, similar to entering a romantic relationship with someone, we can choose or say yes to it. We can commit to a purpose and say yes if it presents itself. In many cases, our purpose introduces itself to us, but because our goals and aspirations diverge from it, we discount it.



Let’s talk story:
I first encountered the vision of the sanctuary a few months before I finished my thesis, packed my backpack, and headed to the West Coast of Canada. The trip would conclude with a Vision Quest that was supposed to take place in British Columbia but got rescheduled to Death Valley in California. In the beginning of the trip, I would have been able to fly to Hawaii and spend a month there, but I ended up staying in Northern California instead.

This side-pot information is relevant because, as you already know, my vision contained Hawaii as the location for the sanctuary. I decided to override the call because I wanted to see if I could find places to trim Cannabis in Northern California instead.
The Vision Quest, for me, was a brutal experience, being sick almost the entire time in the wilderness. The (2nd) Vision that presented itself to me on the morning of the Quest, was a clear understanding that I had to move to Oslo, Norway. My mind added the subtle but crucial part: I would find fame and fortune as a musician there.

At that point in my life, I had just started a five-year commitment to do everything possible to make it as a musician. So the call to Norway sounded to me like the promised land where I would find exactly that. I didn’t, though; unknowingly, it was the beginning of a journey that contained a lot of suffering, homelessness, and transitions. It also included much beauty, healing, and opportunities to learn and let go. Fast forwarding five years, I realized my big dream of playing at festivals like Burning Man or Fusion Festival seemed more distant or even more unreachable than when I had started.

Yet while this was going on, I received a strong pull and call from Pele (Hawaiian Goddess of Volcanoes and Fire), who resides at Halema’uma’u Crater on the Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii Island. The journey of how I got to the Big Island of Hawaii is incredible. I didn’t have any money because I used to work minimum wage jobs to be able to play gigs and produce my music. Yet everything I needed showed up, including a tax refund that I didn’t know I would receive. After a week on Moloka’i and two weeks on Maui, I found my way to South Kona, where I was living on a coffee farm.

This was no coincidence because, at that time, my original Vision had already grown enough for me to investigate if growing coffee would be a valid way to finance the operation of the sanctuary. 
In the weeks on Hawaii Island, my “Soul Purpose” solidified more and more, including driving by the property for the sanctuary. Since I first drove by, I felt something special was there, and I am not alone. The people who stop there to enjoy the view over the land and the Pacific feel it too.

Bringing this point home to underline this chapter. 
From one point of view, I would not have needed the Vision Quest because my “purpose” had already been presented to me. But from another point of view, I was not ready to fully say yes and commit to it. So I seemed to have needed the extra rounds on the karmic wheel to be ready to listen to what the Great Spirit had been telling me for a long time.
So don’t be afraid if you don’t know your purpose or feel overwhelmed that you have to come up with it. On the principle of “ask, and it is given,” when we intend to find our calling, our vision, or our heart’s desire, it will find us even if we decide not to listen and plow through.

If you are looking for inspiration in a book that tells a beautiful story related to finding our treasure,
I invite you to check out Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist.”