Meditation to the Sound of My Own Voice!

I was finally able to get up from meditation. I say "finally" because it took me awhile. I had to wait for my legs to wake up!



I've been doing some meditations from a new book i just got, The Four Desires by Rod Stryker. It is a great book and extremely applicable to my climb up Dharma Peak! Rod guides up through finding our Dharma Code. "Dharma, the desire to become who you were meant to be.... Dharma is also the impulse toward altruism, the inner longing, known or unknown, of every individual to add his or her unique luster to the gem of creation... This larger sense of dharma is at the heart of the soul's inherent longing to fulfill its individual potential."

In his book, Rod has directions for specific meditations and he has a CD with the guided meditations, but I have been recording them and then listening to them. The first time was interesting because it reminded me of the first time I heard myself on the answering machine as a little girl... "who's that!" It's been fun to guide myself through meditation practice and I have been loving the effects of my own voice guiding me!

This most recent one was very powerful and I was able to relax completely, perhaps too much as my legs fell asleep more so than usual. I have grown to not notice when my legs are asleep... not until coming out of meditation when I try to extend my legs and then realize I have to sit for a moment while the prickling sensation does it's job to allow the nerves to communicate with my brain. Supposedly the whole leg falling asleep thing is a problem that goes away after awhile. What's "awhile?" Weeks of a meditation practice? Months? Years? Decades? It's probably different for everyone, and really it's not a problem as long as I schedule in an extra two minutes after my practice for "waking up!" Candle safety is a good plan too as I wouldn't be able to get up and run out of the room if anything caught on fire.


 "...dharma is at the heart of the soul's inherent longing to fulfill its individual potential."
Climb away! Meditation is one of those tools, pieces of gear, to help get us there!


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Joy and Laughter

One of my friends/teachers/yoga buddies said something in class the other day that has made a huge impact on me. Sometimes we have someone that tells us exactly what we need to hear. Pat told me that someone just reminded her to "pause" and it made a world of difference. Carol told me that will and dedication should go hand in hand with joy and laughter. She then proceeded to give me an emergency clown nose! As it says, no one should leave home without it. Many of us "hard workers" have a bad habit of taking ourselves too seriously...

so Brenda, lighten up... smiles, laughter, joy! (thank goodness for friends/teachers/yoga buddies)


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The Little Things

We went climbing in Darrington on Saturday. I am not going to lie, we were hiking up past the river and I really really wanted to just hang out by the river all day. It was warm and sunny and beautiful. I was tired and desired relaxation! Instead, we bushwhacked through a thorny tunnel up to the base of the Green Giant Buttress to climb Dreamer. Of course we approached incorrectly (as did the party in front of us) and had some fun traversing and attempting to find the belay.

What the climbing day consisted of is not what I wanted to talk about. Sometimes its the little things. On the approach, I was looking at Marcs pack when I saw this stick start to move. Unlike what you think of with a stick bug where it looks like a stick but has distinctive legs coming out... this guy was more like a worm that worked its way along. It had feet in front and in back and would bring his back end to the front and then send his front end forward like some sort of army crawl. Later I saw a really cool spider and then when cooking dinner I saw an awesome caterpillar chillin on the side of the picnic table. I'm not usually one that notices all the small bugs, other than the flies and mosquitoes that won't leave me along, but for some reason, I had an eye for the little things that day.

When we were hiking down back to the trail Marc was remarking about how far I've come with my climbing and how much I can do now that I didn't used to be able too. It seems like a huge improvement, like a big change, a big deal. Well, I notice the grandness of it too, but I also know all the little steps that I went through to get where I am. The little things that are often ignored like the bugs. The little things that seemed so big at the time. The little things that combine to make the bigger thing.

The same goes for yoga, at one point I couldn't spread my toes. It took me a long time and a lot of focus to learn how to spread my toes... and it seems like such a little thing...

I wanna take her climbing....!

In class last night, our teacher was talking about the beauty of the way that yoga requires us to focus and brings us into the present moment. Our teacher described how you can't be thinking about ten different things when you are attempting an advanced pose.

Presence is often hard for me as I have one of those minds that likes to go crazy with thoughts, worries, ideas, and everything else. However, I desire presence and am therefore drawn to things that bring me here to this moment.

After class Marc made a comment about how he liked the presence concept. Then he said, "I want to take her climbing!!!!!"

I agree. You can't be thinking about anything else when you are making an exposed traverse on a sustained climb or jamming your hands in a crack and muscling your way up.




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Climbing to Success

"Success is not counted by how high you have climbed but by how many people you brought with you."
- Wil Rose


"Success is the side-effect of your personal dedication to a course greater than yourself."
-Viktor Frankl


"Success is living up to your potential. Don't just show up for life- live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it."
-Joe Kapp





I've just been thinking about success lately... wondering what it means. I think my definition of success has changed over the years, or maybe it has even changed over the past few days. Or maybe there is more than one definition for success depending on what we are referencing. Lately, as I've been thinking about climbing "Dharma Peak," thinking about my calling or purpose and climbing towards it, I have come back time and again to this idea of a higher potential, a higher power, and a higher course. Basically I have been thinking about a higher and higher destination. Higher, greater, better, bigger, more. More than just me, more than just this. I love thinking about a big goal, I think it's beautiful to aim high. And yet, sometimes it it tiring and discouraging. Climbing both my literal and symbolic mountains, I get tired and worn out. Hard work will do that to you! Is the journey enough to sustain when the climbing gets hard? Is the dream strong enough to keep pulling us toward our summit? Do we have the commitment, the dedication, the tapahs?

When I am tired, I try to remember the reason that I work hard, the reason that I put in all of that the effort/tapahs. Success does not come easy, nor should it. When I am tired, sometimes I need to lean on a friend or take a brief rest.

When I am standing on some summit or another, I try to remember these times... the effort/tapahs... so that I can be sure to savor the success! Where ever you are, be there on your journey and we'll climb together.

Training for the Training

Marc and I are currently training for Half Dome. Our weekend training consisted of climbing Liberty Crack. Its a grade five climb that requires "a long day." A long day can turn into a really long day when little things go wrong. Needless-to-say... we had a really long day. I made the mistake of putting Marc in charge of researching the plans. I just wanted to read the topo in the tent the night before. Now, during a google search I see posts describing a 24 hour "long day." Ok, fine, but if we start Saturday before sunrise and don't get down until Sunday... sure feels like more than one day! Had I known...

Aid Climbing means slower and heavier. It also means we get to climb things that might otherwise be impossible. However, this weekend redefined "impossible" for me once again. As I was jugging with a heavy pack or brute forcing up a supposed 5.0 as the sky turned dark or trying to hike down crumbling cascade scree exhausted and in the dark, I thought to myself that I couldn't possibly continue. But there was nothing to do but continue. It took us awhile to find the wrap anchors since only one of our headlamps was bright enough to spot them, but there was nothing to do but keep looking. Everything took awhile, everything took a lot of energy and strength. "Everything" took it out of me until I had nothing left. Yet I continued on. The impossible is possible... if. you're. awesome!!!!! (from Bolt)

I will admit... I shed tears. I yelled at Marc. I quit climbing. For the day. Forever. More than once. But this is a typical response when I am in a place where I am pushing my limits. To say that I was completely in control would mean that I was not yet at my limit. Being at my physical, emotional, and mental edge often means a break down. Physical, emotional, and mental breakdown.

This is why I practice yoga. This is why I climb. I love pushing my limits, I love expanding my comfort zone, I love redefining impossible and learning what I am capable of. Ok... I actually hate it. In the moment that it is happening, it sucks. When I'm exhausted and broken and wanting to give up, I wonder why I put myself in such positions over and over. It is only after that I realize how much I learned and how much I gained that my hate morphs into love and I "un-quit."

I did carry Marc's big camera up Liberty Crack (as if I needed more weight), but the picture below is taken at Index. Me, a haul bag, and a smile! Somehow a smile!

Aid Climbing Index, WA

Aid Climbing Index, WA

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Me me me!

I have been thinking lately how working on improving ourselves can be either selfish or unselfish. On one hand, we are focused on me me me. Everything is about me and my mind and my emotions and my needs and how my world could or should be a better place. On the other side of the coin is the desire to be better for others. I want to make my significant other happy, I want to be a person that my brother wants to be around, I want to be stronger so that I can set a good example for the children in my life.

It is my belief that both sides of the coin are in play. We probably should not want to change/grow ONLY for the sake of other people, from experience I know that wrapping our own happiness up in someone else is not sustainable. At the same time, I think that it is dangerous to think only of ourselves.



We often see ourselves as the center of the world, we think everything revolves around us. We interpret what others see, do, or say by means of how it affects us. Sometimes we try to lesson these outside distractions, we try to turn internal and not let others throw us off our game by feeling like what they said or did had anything to do with us. This is a good practice especially since often we have no idea what is going on in the mind or heart of the other person.

However, from my experience of being human... even though I try to not let other people affect me, they often do. And although I wander through the world not thinking that my attitude on any given day has any impact on others, it often does. If we were to have a little consideration for one another, would our jobs not be easier?!

I often think of a quote that my teacher Molly Lannon Kenny uses with her Yoga and Social Change tour:
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." ~Aboriginal Activists Group



Photos from Bergreen Photography, Seattle outdoor adventure and wedding photography. You can also check our our photo blog to see recent images from weddings and other adventures.