How I Found SoulCollage. Show/Hide

I discovered SoulCollage in 1996 when I was working on a project called "the forces that shaped me," a combination of drawn or painted images and words I developed for self-exploration. A former teacher at CSUS, who had been in Jean Houston’s “Human Capacities Program” with Seena Frost, was intrigued by my exploration. She suggested that I meet Seena as soon as possible, which I did. What led me to SoulCollage was one of those synchronicities that become so familiar the more one delves deeper into this process. I fell in love with it half an hour after stepping into Seena’s living room. Being a very visual person, the invitation to journal in images, integrating colors, symbols and composition through collage was very inspiring and deeply satisfactory. At once I realized its potential for therapeutic work with my clients. The power of images to reveal the unconscious cannot be overstressed, and it seldom fails to work its magic. The structure of SoulCollage provides opportunities to go deeper and with more clarity into the therapeutic process.

About Mariabruna

Mariabruna Sirabella, MS, LMFT, has a Laurea in Communication and Performing Arts from Bologna University, Italy and a Master in Counseling from CSUS, California.

In her first career as a researcher in Theater Anthropology, she spent many years in the tribal areas of Southern India studying eastern spirituality, traditional theater, tribal rituals, and healing trance dances.

Mariabruna has a holistic psychotherapy practice in Watsonville, California, is Adjunct Faculty at JFK University, CA, and is a SoulCollage® Facilitator and Trainer. She teaches internationally in English, Italian and Spanish.

Musings

As a young woman, I passionately wanted to understand the “Mystery” of life. I doggedly gathered information and knowledge. I trotted after scholars and teachers. I immersed myself in the study of the literary classics, of physics, anthropology, art and psychology. I didn’t neglect the Scriptures of many traditions in case their description of God might yield a definitive answer. I traveled voraciously. I looked inside, I looked outside. The answer was always a million steps ahead of me.

Although answers eluded me, the Mystery met me everywhere. Now I just want to taste it, feel it, love it, dance it, sing it and sit in it in wonderment. But life is distracting, isn’t it? There are annoying bills to pay, unsatisfied ambitions, needs and expectations. There is memory pushing its old stories and desire seeking new ones. There is doubt and there is darkness, there is excitement and there is forgetfulness. How is it possible to remember who we really are, our essential nature? Is this remembering what makes a life a work of art?

Yes, it is. By tending to this remembering, each person’s life becomes a masterpiece no matter how humble and private it may be. To sit in wonderment we must learn how to remember, how to trick away the distractions and take time to be. Fortunately, there are many ways to help us along the way. I am very grateful to the many who have taught me and from whom I have learned how to craft my own ways of remembering.

In my work with people, be it teaching, counseling, or making SoulCollage cards. I share my passion for life, for Nature and its beauty, and for meeting the challenge of being human so that together we can remember our larger identity. Among the many keys to this remembrance, I find that the SoulCollage (links to SoulCollage) process has been a most faithful and inspiring companion. I hope you will discover that it is the same for you. In my own life, making art, practicing Yoga, meditating with my drum, creating SoulCollage cards, and communing with Nature feed my soul, ground me in my being and give breath and roots to my dreams.

Experience

Mariabruna brings over 25 years of practice as a researcher, educator, counselor and facilitator to her work with individual clients, groups, and classes. She has been teaching Yoga and its philosophy since 1988 when she completed the Advanced Teacher Training at Mount Madonna Center in California. She trained in Process Acupressure (with Aminah Rahim), Yoga and Movement Therapy, and Shamanic Drumming (with Ai-Chu-Rek and others). She is currently studying the Guaraciana Philosophy of brazilian Babalorisha Carlos Buby.

Mariabruna has taught at JFK University, UCD Experimental College, Cabrillo Community College, and at Mount Madonna Center and many other retreat centers and Yoga Schools in USA and Italy. She has presented SoulCollage at the Dance Therapy Conference, the Transpersonal Psychology Conference (with Seena Frost), The Psychosynthesis Conference (with Seena Frost) and the 2007 SoulCollage Facilitators Conference.

Background

Born in Italy, Mariabruna came to the United States as an adult. Since her university years, she has been interested in the many aspects of communication. Her influential teachers include Umberto Eco, under whose guidance she collaborated on an internal seminar publication on non-verbal communication. Her long involvement in other cultures prompted her to pursue studies in cross-cultural issues, racism and the management of diversity in the therapeutic setting. These studies led her to develop an expressive art approach called “Multiplexity: Tools for Compassion in a Multicultural World” where she invites participants to explore and embrace diversity first within, then without.

Because of her interest in holistic healing, she became involved in an interdisciplinary group focused on addressing the management of Chronic Pain at Watsonville Community Hospital. These collegial investigations on the physical and emotional consequences of suffering and the possibilities of an integrated treatment led her to create “Turning Points: A Psycho-educational Curriculum for Managing Life with Chronic Pain.” “Turning Points” is a group process that combines the wisdom of eastern philosophies and practices with the latest research on the management of pain using Expressive Arts and SoulCollage principles. Mariabruna facilitated several such groups at Watsonville Community Hospital through the years with remarkable results.

To contact Mariabruna, call 831.768.1442 or email her.