About Brenda

I currently reside in a small rural community in Wyoming. I find myself questioning the path of choices that brought me to this small farming community – 3,500 people in the county – as I have had the opportunity to live in San Diego, California; Des Moines, Iowa; Newport, Rhode Island; Jacksonville, Florida; and Syndney, Australia.  Karma?

My parents were living in a lumber town nestled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when I entered the world as a “second born” and embarked on a life journey as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, niece, and grandmother.

My career as a therapist has included working with individuals who present with concerns associated with substance abuse, domestic violence, grief and loss, trauma, as well as “severe and persistent mental illness.” Since completing my Master’s degree – so many years ago – I have been drawn towards Bowen’s Family System and Biddhist Psychology. I’m excited about the readings that unite neuropsychology with schools of Buddhist thought.

Photography has served two purposes within my life: 1) validation of one’s life and of the emotional connections between people and 2) a visual means to communication beyond the limitations of words. This is especially meaningful as my parents were deaf.

the mari sisters

Art has been a private interest, a individual endeavor, that had it’s beginning within a healing environment created by a well-defined, compassionate therapist. Art is a powerful meditative as well as contemplative tool.

Within all of us there are powerful emotions within our souls that remain voiceless and silent until they are conveyed through imagery and symbols. It is through creative endeavors – drawing, cooking, writing, painting, gardening, poetry, child rearing, photography, weaving, reading, work – that a woman may be able to give “voice” to that which words cannot convey.

All forms of art provide a means to help a woman externalize that which silently moves her, to re-acquaint her self with self, to re-create a new awareness of self, to communicate about herself with others, and to meet her own wondrous feminine spirit/guide.

It is my hope that as you journey through the words that build my blog, A Meditative Journey with Saldage*, you return again and again to the wisdom within the Kalama Sutta. If you find that my words, images, and/or images trigger any discontent within, please abandon them. If you find that they lead to an easing of discontent, please accept my written thoughts as a gift from me to you.

Please note that all images included in this blog have been created by me if not otherwise noted.

*The word “saldage” and its spelling and meaning was introduced to me through readings of eastern medicine. Recently a blogger shared with me that “saldage” was in fact spelled “saudade”.  Saudade is a unique Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. In the book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bell writes: The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.  (cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade)