Author Portfolio

Exploring how relational cultures allow autonomy, community, and ecological belonging to grow together.

My essay on how gardening can help in practical ways to solve the world problems (free downloadable on my website)

Author & System Thinker

Wende is a system thinker, writer, and community practitioner based in Portugal. Her work explores how relational cultures emerge and how autonomy and connection can reinforce each other in human communities.

Drawing from lived experience in intentional communities, ecological gardening, and personal guidance, she observes how living systems organize themselves when relationships are healthy. Writing is one of the ways she articulates these insights, combining reflection, lived experience, and social observation.

Her work asks a central question: What cultural foundations allow humans to live together in ways that are both deeply autonomous and deeply connected?

Core Themes

• Relational cultures and autonomy

• Community life as a living system

• Ecological belonging and natural gardening

• Social transformation and cultural narratives

• Diversity, identity, and relational inclusion

The Three Pillars of Wende’s Work

1. Relational Culture

The cultural foundation of healthy human systems. This pillar explores how trust, reciprocity, and mutual care create the conditions in which people can truly flourish together. When relationships are strong and people feel supported, communities become resilient, creative, and capable of navigating complexity. Relational culture is the ground from which cooperation, belonging, and collective intelligence emerge.

2. Autonomy Within Connection

Becoming fully oneself while remaining deeply connected. Wende’s work challenges the common idea that autonomy and community are opposites. Instead, she explores how genuine autonomy grows within relational cultures where people “have each other’s backs.”

In such environments, individuals naturally take responsibility for themselves and for the well-being of others. Autonomy and community reinforce each other rather than compete.

3. HumanNature

Reconnecting human life with the wider living world. The third pillar explores the relationship between human societies and the more-than-human world. Through ecological gardening, systems thinking, and reflection on cultural narratives, Wende examines how humans can rediscover their place within living ecosystems. Nature is not simply a resource or a backdrop to human life; it is the larger system to which we belong.

Publications

Contribution to the book Culture, Organization and Management in East Asia: Doing Business in China (2002), edited by Heide Dahles and Harry Wels.

Essay: Natural Gardening: From Control to Cooperation, From Separateness to Belonging (2025).

Ongoing essays and reflections published on her blog.

Talks & Appearances

Online conference on trauma-sensitive yoga, where Wende spoke about subtle systemic discrimination and the slow accumulation of trauma within the transgender community, in connection with the work of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment (TCTSY) (2020).

Interviewee in the film "No Right Angles" created as part of a research project funded by the Research Development Fund of SWPS University, Poland. The film was about living in communities. (2025)

Interview with a scholar from the University of Lisbon about the healing potential of psychedelics in relation to relational culture and autonomy. (2025)

Various interviews over the years on topics including China, gender identity, and community life.

Current Writing Projects

Communities — Experiments with Social Change

A book exploring the cultural foundations that allow communities to thrive, combining lived experience, systems thinking, and practical reflection.

Future projects in development

Relational Cultures and Autonomy — An Alternative for Our Modern Way of Living

An exploration of how relational cultures enable authentic autonomy and how autonomy and connection can reinforce each other within living systems.

Being Queer — What We Have to Offer the World (essay)

A reflective essay exploring how queer experience can contribute to broader cultural transformation, relational awareness, and new ways of understanding identity and belonging.

HumanNature — An Exploration of Our Place in This World (essay)

An essay examining the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world, reflecting on ecological belonging, interdependence, and the cultural narratives shaping our relationship with nature.

Practice as Living Laboratory

Alongside her writing, Wende works directly with people and communities through:

• Counseling and personal guidance

• Community facilitation and conflict navigation

• Natural garden design and ecological practices

• Workshops on gardening, ecology, and relational living

These practices form the experiential ground from which her reflections and writing emerge.

Closing Note

Wende’s work explores a simple but profound idea: when relational cultures are strong and people truly “have each other’s backs,” autonomy and responsibility naturally reinforce each other. Her writing seeks to offer clarity, inspiration, and hope for those exploring new ways of living together.