Norma is a health professional with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from the University of Colorado and a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling Psychology from Lewis and Clark College. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Oregon and Washington, a Nationally Certified Counselor and a Nationally Registered Group Psychotherapist. Norma blends professional knowledge and universal principles of recovery and health after many years of work with professionals highly trained in Chinese medicine & exercise, depth psychology and Apache healing ways.

Schell's adventurous international travels gave perspective to her conventional approach to life. The beauty and philosophies of the countries, as well as, the struggle and conflicting richness of their cultures fostered a broadened understanding. However, Norma's childhood on the family farm land in Nebraska, her continued study of tracking, wilderness survival and ways of nature give her context for life. Schell's relationship with the body, nature and the deep psyche teaches her awareness of the profound, deeply meaningful spirit and integrated totality of all things.

Norma narrates her recovery from multiple sclerosis. However, her life is about the search for her inner voice, unfolding as a human being, her desired -- but long forgotten -- relationship with the spirit of nature. Multiple sclerosis was a gift from her body -- a wake up call, an ultimatum. Her physical nature demanded to be heard or she would pay serious consequences.

As she became ill, her conditioned response to life intensified. In her rush to live and to achieve, she had become indifferent to the earth -- the origin of her air, water, food and shelter. She no longer related to the lay of the land or her relationship to it. She stubbornly ignored her aching body, while focusing on other agendas until her inmost fibers screamed with symptoms of illness. Norma became disconnected from her deep inner needs, alienated from her deepest truths and longings. Then she became deadened even to the demands of the outer world as her body turned numb. What she so desperately searched for was always within her and in nature--the ineffable element that resonates to the Creator. Discovery required her to leave her known, ordinary and familiar life to walk an unknown path
                                          -- the path of the heart.