Angels on Her Mind
By Sibel Ozer
I was hesitant to share my latest painting as my ingrained skepticism rears its head whenever angels appear, making me feel childish that I paint them. I grew up in a household where rationality ruled; the fantastical was accepted as part of the arts, but not necessarily respected. The intelligence of people of faith was questioned in principle, and my innocent curiosity was frequently ridiculed. I think it rather miraculous that my spiritual interests and seeker tendencies weren’t wiped out all together. In some of us, the yearning for a relationship with the Divine is stronge—no different than a love of the arts or a passion for music is in others—and therefore hard to extinguish.
Becoming a transpersonal art therapist offered a certain legitimacy to my explorations of the spiritual realm, since it falls under the category of social sciences and involves the intellectualization of experiences. The fact that transpersonal experiences remain contradictory to the rational mind hasn’t stopped us from trying to understand them. And I am enough a child of my upbringing that I continue to attempt to articulate and make sense of mystical experiences or mindboggling synchronicities.
I’ve been practicing The Art of Allowing for years now, which is a type of process painting with an intention to connect with, and learn from, the Divine Feminine. It requires of us the bringing forth of that which we see emerging from the colorful backgrounds that are created with freedom. Depending on how one wants to look at it, one can interpret completed pieces as works of projections of the human psyche, or revelations of not only the personal but also the collective unconscious or transpersonal realms. The human psyche is interesting in that it holds a place for both rationality and the mythic, even though they are opposing tendencies.
I was wondering what it might mean that this angel had angels on her mind, when it occurred to me that “you are what you think!” Later the same day I came across the post of another painter whose most recent work was titled “You are where your mind is. Stay present”. I was stunned at the synchronicity. I figured maybe this painting was a message that more people are in need of than I realized. So, let’s all pay attention to where our thoughts are as they most certainly impact our emotions, even our actions if we let them—in other words our reality.
It is also important to remember that since we are what we think, the choices we make around how to best navigate the pandemic that has affected us in different ways falls under this category. It is so easy to conclude that those thinking and believing other than us are uninformed or idiotic. We live in times where we increasingly receive different, and at times opposing, information from different sources, which we all decided we trust.
It is incredibly hard if not impossible to get someone to change what has taken root in their mind. We are what we believe. So, this angel is inviting us to be more compassionate as we share this planet with people who do not believe as we do. It makes neither side less deserving of respect.
Sibel Ozer is a licensed professional counselor and board-certified art therapist currently doing private practice in downtown Ann Arbor. She started her career as a clinical psychologist working with earthquake survivors in Turkey. She continued her work in the United States in hospice, hospital, and private practice settings further specializing in grief, loss, and trauma. She is a certified EMDR practitioner and a graduate of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. She gives experiential workshops nationally and in her country of origin (Turkey) on different art therapy topics. Visit www.sibelozer.com, call (303) 905-1109, or email fireflyarttherapy@gmail.com.
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I was hesitant to share my latest painting as my ingrained skepticism rears its head whenever angels appear, making me feel childish that I paint them. I grew up in a household where rationality ruled; the fantastical was accepted as part of the arts, but not necessarily respected. The intelligence of people of faith was questioned in principle, and my innocent curiosity was frequently ridiculed. I think it is rather miraculous that my spiritual interests and seeker tendencies weren’t wiped out altogether. In some of us, the yearning for a relationship with the Divine is strong—no different than a love of the arts or a passion for music is in others—and therefore hard to extinguish.