Art as a Path Home: Healing, Unity, and Spiritual Creativity with Cindy Libman

In this rich and heartfelt conversation, Dr. Habib sits down with psychotherapist-turned-spiritual-healer and painter Yasmine Rahmana Cindy Libman to explore the transformative power of creativity. Cindy shares her journey from lifelong anxiety and illness to profound inner peace through mysticism, healing, and the unexpected emergence of art as a spiritual practice.

Together, they reflect on art as a form of meditation, purification, and openness—a way of clearing what constricts the heart so that the light can flow more freely. Cindy reveals how colors, movement, and spontaneous images become doorways into unity consciousness, and how creativity can help us find our unique voice, return to the truth of our being, and reconnect with the One Light we all share.

Whether you consider yourself an artist or haven’t picked up a brush since childhood, this episode invites you into a deeper understanding of spirituality as something available in every moment—and within every act of creation.

Transcript

Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone

YouTube Channel: Beyond Names with Dr. Habib Boerger

YouTube handle: @BeyondNamesPodcast

Episode: 23

Host: Dr. Habib Boerger

Conversation Partner: Yasmine Rahmana Cindy Libman

Title: Art as a Path Home: Healing, Unity, and Spiritual Creativity with Cindy Libman

Description: In this rich and heartfelt conversation, Dr. Habib sits down with psychotherapist-turned-spiritual-healer and painter Yasmine Rahmana Cindy Libman to explore the transformative power of creativity. Cindy shares her journey from lifelong anxiety and illness to profound inner peace through mysticism, healing, and the unexpected emergence of art as a spiritual practice.

Together, they reflect on art as a form of meditation, purification, and openness—a way of clearing what constricts the heart so that the light can flow more freely. Cindy reveals how colors, movement, and spontaneous images become doorways into unity consciousness, and how creativity can help us find our unique voice, return to the truth of our being, and reconnect with the One Light we all share.

Whether you consider yourself an artist or haven’t picked up a brush since childhood, this episode invites you into a deeper understanding of spirituality as something available in every moment—and within every act of creation.

Transcript:

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Welcome to Beyond Names. I'm Dr. Habib. This is a space for spiritual seekers and soulful misfits, for the curious and the committed, and for those grounded in a tradition, as well as those who are not sure what they believe.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Whether you call the divine God, Yahweh, Allah, Elohim, Brahman, Great Spirit, Higher Power, or you're still searching for language that fits, you are welcome here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Together, we'll explore the intersections of spirituality and daily life, the wisdom of many traditions, and the ways we return to our true selves, to our source, to the light that each of us carry within.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin with introduction of our conversation partner for this episode, Cindy Libman.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Cindy was a psychotherapist for 45 years, and she became a master spiritual healer. She now serves as faculty at the University of Sufism, and we're…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm especially happy to have her here, because she's here to talk about the intersection of spirituality and art, because she is also a painter. To learn more about Cindy and her work, please visit https://cindylibman.com/.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Cindy, welcome, thank you for being here.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Oh, what a treat! I love the idea of this podcast for exploring. It's such a needed venue, so thank you for having me.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Oh, well, my pleasure. So, would you please introduce yourself by telling us a bit about your spiritual story?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Sure.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, I have kind of a colorful background. I was raised Jewish.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then for many years, I was a Buddhist.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And on my Buddhist journey, I kept feeling like something was missing. I wasn't sure what that was, but I felt like I wasn't yet home.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so I started exploring, and I was in an energy healing school at that time, and the woman who was teaching was a Sufi.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I thought, Sufi? Never heard of a Sufi. What is a Sufi? And she did these different practices, and she did Sufi dances, which… the universal dances of peace, which people have probably heard of, but I had never heard of it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, I started going to workshops. I went to one workshop, I don't remember where it was, and they were doing a chant, “There is no god but God.” The one God. Everybody's God.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I didn't know what the chant meant exactly, but I started weeping. And as I started weeping, I thought, why am I weeping? You know, I wasn't sad, there wasn't anything going on.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I started feeling into kind of the texture of the weeping.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And it became like coming home. You know, that's the best I can describe it. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: It was like coming home, there was something about this that just opened a place in me that felt like home.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I thought, huh… Okay, that's interesting information, and so I was still kind of dabbling at that point.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Eventually, I ended up on a Sufi path. It was at the time called Chishti Order, or Sufi International. Pir Vilayat [Inayat Khan] was the head of that order at the time.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I took initiation with him at a workshop.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, and what had called me to that particular Sufi order was the music, that he had a lot of musical metaphors.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, it was a beautiful order, beautiful path, and later on I was really longing for community local.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I heard there was a local community of the Shadhiliyya Sufi order.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, I went to some of their workshops.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And eventually shifted, took initiation on this path, took the promise, and this order is a healing order, so it fit, like, just perfectly with what I was needing next.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I'll tell you, the reason I was seeking had to do with, kind of, what was happening in my life. I had had a lot of illness, and I had had panic attacks and a lot of anxiety for probably 20 years of my life.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And as a therapist, I went and saw every big-name therapist.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, you know, and I learned how to manage, and I learned what, you know, all sorts of things, but I was never really free. I was never at peace in my own body.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, and so I was seeking, because I had this thought that there's got to be a way where I could have peace in my body.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And my anxiety was, like, I would say kind of debilitating. Like, I wouldn't leave home.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I had, it stirred up all sorts of different illness conditions. And so when most people in their 20s and 30s were out exploring in the world, I was very confined.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, even though I went to college, I can't imagine how I managed that, but I went.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: But I really did not have any kind of freedom.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, as I started on this path, I learned practices, I went to school, I, you know, like, everything started transforming.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And one of the things that really helped was that I understood that what I was listening to inside was not the truth.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, I was listening to the darkness of the world, the negativity, programming from my family, trauma conditions.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And little by little by little, that started to heal, it started to open up and peel off of me, and then I discovered that the truth of my being is peace, and love, and mercy.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And what a surprise and a shock that was, you know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, anyways, and eventually I just kept moving in that direction, further and further and further, because it felt so good, and I was really starting to be able to show up in my being, you know, who I was created to be.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And had felt like I wasn't able to do that, probably till after my 40s.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, it was a… it was a long journey.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And…I'm still a student, I'm a teacher, I'm a student, I probably will forever be on this path and learning and exploring and trying to be as close to God as I can.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So… and hopefully to share it with people and in the world.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Okay, I think that takes us up to the now… more or less.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah, and so, I don't know if I should talk a little bit about how the art entered in?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Please do, yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Okay, so, you know, as a therapist and as a healer, I sit most of the time.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, you know, all the new things say sitting is like the smoking now. You know, sitting is, like, not good for you. So, I decided a number of years ago I need to institute some different, like, things for my body, for my health, for my well-being. So one of the things I do with my husband, every day we walk. We start our morning with a walk, even though I live in Minnesota, and it's, like, getting really cold here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: What a brave soul you are.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes, we bundle up and we walk.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So that's one thing. And the other thing is, I, you know, as a teenager, I loved, like, sewing, and crafts, and making things, and beading, and baking, and, you know, making curtains, and pillows, and, you know, I just, I always loved that kind of expression.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I was thinking, you know, I do nothing now. You know, I sit in front of a Zoom camera, you know, talking to people.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And it's not very balanced, right? And so, I saw this art, you know, everybody's on YouTube.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And all those different things on, you know, online. And I saw this woman, and she was doing this art where you put little dots of paint down, and then you take a squeegee, and you pull it through.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And she made these beautiful things. I thought, I can do that. I… so I went and I got some basic art supplies, and I'm going to show you, like, something similar to what… whoops, similar to what was going on. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So you can see, it's just colors. Movement, you know, nothing too complicated. And I started making these greeting cards.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, and now I, I, you know, and I've got, Oh, there's all sorts of versions of them. Here's one. Sometimes they come into, like, really pretty patterns, but it's mostly movement and color.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And depending on the mood I'm in, you'll see there's differences in kind of how they feel. So here's kind of some of my more recent ones. I've gone wild.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And the colors and the movement and the scribbles all kind of go into, like, you know, like a feeling that you get when you look at the art.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And it's funny to watch, I watch people go through… I have hundreds of these cards.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Here's one that's kind of a spring collection. Wildflowers.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And sometimes there's nature… whoops, I guess this one's a little blurry.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So I started making these greeting cards and then sending them to friends and people on the path.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, like, sometimes when I was teaching, when the class graduated, I'd write notes to people.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And put them in the cards, and then people started wanting to, you know, purchase my cards. And I had, at that time, probably 200 or 300 cards. I had really gone wild with it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And there was something about it that was really… it just felt so good to be creating.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: There was something about it, and I thought, oh, whatever this feeling is that I'm having while I'm doing this is kind of where I want to live.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, it's like I wasn't stuck anywhere, things were moving, things were shifting, there's a fluidity with it, and in that, there's an opening for whatever wants to move through, to come through.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Because I'm not using my mind, or I'm using a different part of my mind, not using my mind to kind of…make something happen. And you can see by these, they're very, like, fluid and, you know, color and movement.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And as a healer, one of the things I know is, in order to change something, we have to kind of, like…open whatever we're carrying that's not serving us.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: We have to explore it, we have to express it, and we have to kind of, like, open the way for God's light to come into that place and change it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: We can't really change it if we're still holding so much stuff in there that there's no room for it. There's no room for the change, no invitation for the change to come in.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, as I started doing this, it started to become more of a practice, and most artists… I don't really consider myself an artist at this point, but I love to make art. That's what I say. I love to make art.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, most, most artists have kind of a practice they do. Some people journal, they paint in a book, and I tried that for a while, but I felt very confined in this journal book. It was, like, not big enough, or large enough, or had enough movement for me.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So then I started painting on canvases and using it as a way to really process whatever was alive in me in the moment.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And sometimes, it was joy.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Sometimes it was, like, excitement or fun, but sometimes it was, conflict, or difficulty, or especially more recently, the last year or two has, you know, the world is so filled with, I don't know what you'd say, like, deceit and difficulty, you know? 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, it's become a really wonderful way for me to, like, tune out the world and move with whatever's moving through.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So... And I'm… I'm self-taught, I've never had any art lessons, except for what I learned on YouTubes and other…  You know, there's artists I kind of follow online, and there's some really… there's a lot happening in the art world now with this kind of using art as kind of a spiritual path.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, like, like, there's a couple artists that I follow. Nicholas Wilton is one of them, and Louise Fletcher.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And both of them are putting out materials and, you know, exposing their own process and talking to people in a way that really enhances the spiritual dynamics and the emotional dynamics, and moving the feelings. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Rather than producing this realistic, pretty, beautiful piece of art, it's more like your unique voice, and your own movement, and what's happening, and what's alive in you in this moment.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I have a couple of questions that I want to, come back to particular points in your spiritual story and in what you're sharing about… about art.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: First of all, I just want to… because…as you and I talked about before we recorded, started recording, and in previous conversations, that part of my impetus in this podcast is the desire to make spirituality accessible to folks who, who might only think of spirituality as, like, oh, this is when I pray, you know, or this is when I go to the synagogue, or the church, or the temple, or the ashram, or the mosque, you know. And to expand that and say, no, actually, spirituality can be experienced in everything and anything with the right intention. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, as you know, that's part… but that begs the question of, okay, so if we are saying that spirituality can be experienced in art, what do we mean by spirituality? So… would you, yeah, would you tell us what spirituality means to you?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, for me, it means unity consciousness.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And what I mean by that is the unity that everyone, everybody, every creature, everything is all connected.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So it's entering this place of really not just thinking it, like, I know there's unity consciousness here, you know, but really being able to feel it, embody it, open into it, and be able to use that as guidance, as movement, as resource.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I mean, that's what I would say. It's like knowing in your cells, in your heart, in your mind, in, you know, every aspect of who you are that you are part of something larger, that you are part of God Consciousness, unity consciousness, whatever name you find for it, and really embodying to the best that we can in our human form, embodying those qualities of love, peace, mercy, justice, freedom.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And… and… Being a vehicle for that to come through into the world.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, to contribute however it moves through you, you know? You don't have to be a healer, a teacher, you can be a digger in the dirt and be very spiritual. You can be, you know, you can be anything.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: But, but God sends through each of us our own fragrance, our own flavor, our own piece of the big tapestry.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, to really know that is such a beautiful experience, and such, so much freedom. So much freedom.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And to really be able to resource yourself direct from the source of the love. Not from people.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: We're all human, we're all flawed, we all make mistakes, we all… we all fall down, we all have trials.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, we're here to learn. We're here to learn, we're here to know God, and, or whatever you come to call God, but, on the Sufi path, we call God Allah, and, I was very triggered by that word in the beginning and now it's my deepest love, you know? So, I wouldn't say it the first year. I wouldn't even try it. I wouldn't even try it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And now, it's like, everywhere I go, you know, every movement I make, you know, it's like there's an inner, it's like the heartbeat. There's like this inner Allah, Allah, Allah that stays with me, like, all the time.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: All the time, and I feel like I'm held in that. And so that's part of how I arrived at peace was not making separation. Like, there's me, there's you. There's me, there's them. You know, it's like we're all in it, all together, all the time, doing the best we can, you know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: But… but I'll tell you the… for me, it is miraculous that I can even be, like, on a…a dialogue like this, because in my former life, I couldn't have tolerated it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, so when I can do something like this, and it's not that I'm not somewhat nervous, you know, but I can, you know, I'm held in the nervousness.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, so I can still find the peace. And for me, that is a miracle.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, it's one of the little miracles in life is how you can transform.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And there's so many ways we can transform once we take up the business of transforming. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, once we say yes, once we choose, there are so many ways to transform.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: There's so many parts of your story that I relate to in.... 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Obviously, there's differences, but when I first was exposed to Sufism, I was very much carrying childhood wounding, and so, just the word God, Lord, like, any word whatsoever that had a religious connotation at all was a trigger, I was very reactive to any of… any…kind of word in that field. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so for me, it was actually nice to be exposed to the Arabic because I didn't know what it meant.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so I approached the practices like a science experiment, and whenever somebody would try and tell me what something meant, I'd be like, oh, I don't want to know.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes! Yes. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And of course, the Arabic language has a sound code, so it, like, works on you, even though you don't know what it means.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, and there's other languages that do that as well. Sanskrit, when you take a yoga class and they're speaking the heart sutras, whatever.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And that's what I, like, what I found that sounds similar to you is that in approaching it as a science experiment and just starting to do these practices in Arabic, I noticed, oh, I feel more at peace.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it's a different state than I've felt before in my life prior to this point. I feel more calm, differently than I have felt prior to this point.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then, before I knew it, I was like, oh, wait a minute, I'm experiencing this sense of connection to the divine, and a sense of being held in divine love before I… that I hadn't experienced before. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So... And a sense of coming home, as you've mentioned earlier, that sense of…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, yeah, I feel so many points of connection with that. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then I'm also reminded of, when you talked about how the name Allah is something that you were initially reactive to in the beginning, but now it sort of is like, I forget the language you used, but almost as if it's with you and breathing you in every heartbeat.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And that reminds me of Gandhi talking about Rahmah as his mantra. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Using the divine name Rahmah, and that he referred to that as his staff of life.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. So it sounds like Allah, the remembrance of Allah in your heart has become a staff of life for…

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes, and it's not something that is, like, rote, like I say it because somebody told me to say it. I say it from this place of love, and seeking the love, and receiving, and returning, and, you know, kind of this endless loop.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And… and it's resource for me. Like, if I have to go to the dentist's office, and I'm going to have some work done, and I'm not happy about it, inwardly I'm saying, Allah, Allah, Allah. And what I'm feeling is, like, Allah's got this. Like, the dentist, the room, me, everything that's happening in it, you know, that it's all contained in the light.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then I can let go.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Oh, I don't have to worry about this. I don't have to try and control it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I don't have to plan out every step of what's going to happen here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, that I can just let it be.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Beautiful.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, in relation to the… your description of spirituality as unity consciousness, is there something, now that you've spent so much time as a painter, and is there something in the process of creativity, the process of painting, that helps you make that connection with unity consciousness?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Well, I'll tell you, because, you know, because I'm a… I would say I'm a newer painter, you know what I mean? Like, it's been maybe a couple years, couple, two, three years that I've been painting.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Really what I've used it for is processing.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Processing out whatever is either in the way, or whatever wants to move through. I really… I approach it like a meditation practice in some ways. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: It's like… So… so here's what I would do on a typical… I paint almost every day, okay? So here's what I would do. I set up my space, I kind of have some notion of maybe what colors are calling to me, okay?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then I just start putting paint on the canvas. My husband will come in and out of the room sometimes when I'm painting, and it's like, sometimes it's like, it's like a wild process, you know? Like, I'm moving, and changing and doing things. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And sometimes, it's a slow process. You know, it's just, it's like whatever is arriving in the moment. So, there's different, different, I would say about my painting, I have kind of different categories, if that makes sense.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, I'll… I'll show you, I'll show you something that I was… I decided one day, I put this canvas on the wall, and I was going to paint on it, and I was really feeling drawn to, like, black and white, you know, the interplay of black and white, the darkness, the light, whatever. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I started… I'll show you the…product here. Can you see?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's… Give it a minute, it's…

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Oh, here, here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's better.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: There, this is better. Okay, so you can see it's black and white, it's abstract, there's all sorts of things happening in it. Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And when I started it, it was just black and white in the center, like this big swirl. And every day, I'd, you know, kind of walk by it. It was kind of… 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I usually have 2 or 3 projects going at the same time. And one day I came by it, and I saw this face appear.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I thought, well, that's interesting. I don't paint faces. I don't paint people, okay? And here is what's in the center of the painting.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Can you see this?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yep.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Okay, so there's this woman's face, and I started to see her, and I just took a white…like, crayon-like thing, and outlined what appeared.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: They don't draw, really.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And there she was. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And behind her…is… I don't know if you can quite see this with the accuracy, to the left of her, to the side of her here, you can see there's kind of a man. His face.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yep.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah, so it's like… Where did that come from? You know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: It just kind of appeared.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I just, like, honored it, went with it, and there it was. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And my husband came down, and he looked, and he thought, oh my goodness, like, what happened to your abstract. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I said, I don't know, this face just came.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And... So, I never know quite what's going to come through, and so then that started kind of an opening for me of doing faces, and doing, bodies, and doing out-of-abstracts. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I saw this woman online who painted, who would make an abstract painting, and then she'd sit with it, and she'd see what appeared.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so I started that process just because it interested me when I saw her. And all sorts of different people would show up.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah, so I have a whole series of… diversity.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: But… so… then I have… then I have other things that come through. Oh, here, I'll show you, here's one on paper.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: This is one that started as an abstract painting. Is that clear for you?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: No, hold it closer to your…. There you go.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Face. There. Okay, so there's a sweet spot here. So you can see the wild colors…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then out of the colors, when I sat with it, these women appeared.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm…

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, they're different races, different colors, different ages, different whatever. And, and I just started really kind of loving this.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And wanting to see who's going to be visiting. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Here's another one of the same… this was a… this is a really large one.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So…it is just kind of, interesting, and it just… it, I don't know, there's something about it that just made me feel good.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, oftentimes I paint for, like… joy, movement, appreciation, gratitude. Those are a lot of the things.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And here, I'll show you some, since I have my papers here. This is one of the flowers. I love doing flowers. This is one of the joyful ones. And this was created in probably 10 minutes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Wow.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: That's kind of what happens when it comes through.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: It's like, sometimes I struggle with something over and over and over, and that's a different kind of process, because the struggle needs to be there.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, it's like I'm working through something, and I'm learning something while I'm working it. Like, I'm working, and I think, I can't finish this right now. It isn't ready to be finished.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Whereas this one just came out that way. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know? But some of them are like a struggle, and I go back, and I go back, and I go back, and THEN, you know....

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Painting is so much like life, you know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Like, some things are easy. And we just go with it, and some things take time to develop, to breathe, to show themselves. And sometimes, what I think I've started with is not at all what I end up with.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Those are the fun ones, you know, it's like, I read this book, Pir Vilayat wrote one time, it was called, That Which Transpires Behind That Which Appears.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so it's like, I've got a painting, and all of a sudden, I just have this knowing, this is not it. This is not it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I totally move it. I totally transform it, I paint over it, I sand it down, I do whatever I need to do to let what wants to be there be there.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I'm oftentimes so much more happy with what shows up.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, I was going to show this one. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: We'll see how we can do with showing this, because this one… This one… let's see, where is the good sweet zone for this?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Well, you can see it's a… it's a sailboat, more or less, in a rough sea.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Okay, and this one is called “Ride It Out.”

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And this painting was sitting in my basement, with me for a while, changing, kind of, daily, and it was during a time where I was really triggered by something.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I was, you know, you can see the colors are not so light and bright, they're kind of more dulled.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, and I was painting it out. I was just painting this storm right out.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And, and eventually it cleared, and it was funny, the sailboat wasn't in there until the very end.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then I thought, ride it out. You know? And… That's kind of what happened.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Huh. So, I can't…. Earlier you made the connection between your experience of healing and your experience of painting, and I can't help but make the connection between the emphasis in Sufism on purification.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Cleaning, and when you're talking about your painting process, it sounds very much like, it's almost a purification process, that it's like a process of you, cleaning or clearing out whatever is there, almost like your… so your vessel can be, like, clear and free-flowing and in the universal flow, because there's… the barriers have been removed, so to speak. Is that an accurate way of expressing it?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: That's a very good way of expressing it. Yes, it's like whatever needs to move can move.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Because, you know, it's like sometimes, like, let's say I get triggered, I'm angry about something, or impatient, you know? Like, we all have to deal with our own nature, our own temperament, you know, until we don't.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And there's no way, like… like, I know all the spiritual principles of not speaking it, not hurting people, not whatever, but I'm still carrying this energy inside. Like, what the heck do you do with it, right?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, for me, I'm… I'm a little, I don't know what you'd call it, expressive, intense, strong-willed, you know, that's what I've been given. When it's aligned with the light, it's… it's wonderful, you know, I can get things done, I can move things, but when it's not in alignment, I'm, like, tripping over myself. You know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so you're right, it is a purification process.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: It's a process of, okay, I don't want to move this stormy mood I'm having on anybody else, but I can put it on the canvas, and move it outside of me, and create some room for what wants to live in there.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Because otherwise, it's like we have a sliver in us, and it's festering, you know?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: and we… then we try and paint, like, something nice over it. It's not going to happen. It's like it needs to come out in its mess, in its form, in its, you know… and it's…. I'll show you another one here that I've got. This is… this is a very recent one.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I don't know if you can see this, this is like graffiti art, I would call, but it's got heart. And this was painted, I think, on a bad political day, you know, when there was stuff happening, happening in the world, and I, like, didn't want to look at it, I didn't want to feel it, I didn't want to, you know, do anything with it, and…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I have friends that are all activated about, you know, political things, and I thought, I'm… this is where I'm going with it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then I put heart over it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Very nice.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Over all the chaos, and all the things that are moving.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes, and sometimes, this is one… this is a painting I did that's very, okay, let's see here. This is, like, a solitude one, and it's done with gold. It's got a lot of gold light in it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So this is kind of like, you know, sometimes I paint a lot of nature and… or dreamlike states, this is one that's… another kind of… soft, ease…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm… Beautiful.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, so you can feel the different moods in these, and it's funny, when people come to look at the art, they resonate with certain things, you know, and they don't resonate with other things, and they like certain colors, and they don't like other colors, and it's really… it's a whole…it's a whole, like, Rorschach test of, you know, what's happening inside the person, and I find that the paintings I created quickly, okay, are the ones that resonate the most with people.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: The ones I toiled over, and had trouble with, and whatever, not quite so much.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Interesting.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, it's like, people are, you know, they want to invoke, I think especially right now in the world, they want to invoke joy, or peace, or hope, or upliftment. You know? 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, so…art, painting as a practice of joy, as a practice of gratitude, as a practice of peace, as a practice of cleaning or clearing, as a practice of creating inner spaciousness, as a practice of transformation, sounds like, yeah. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes. And it's kind of like, I think it's why, like, people are, like, runners, or, you know, engage in physical activity, because when you complete, when you're done, whatever you've done, there's this feeling of, like, ahhh… You know? Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Like, now you're clear. Now you're clean. Now you can open to life, as it is, you know? From a different place.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: From a different place. It's like all this movement that needed to happen, happened.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And now you can just kind of receive.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's… it's so great that you just said that. In a lot of the spiritual formation classes, and…podcast listeners who've listened to every episode have heard me say this before, but I talk about the R's of the spiritual development process being remembering, reading, reflecting, receiving, and returning. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And as you were talking, I was like, oh, this is art as openness, which is a receiving practice. It's like you are consciously engaging in a process that allows you through the clearing, to become more open, and to receive more love, and to receive more light, and to…. And by opening to receive more, you open to give more.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Beautiful.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Yes.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, what would you say to…let's say a college student, or…a young… a young person, a high school, college, who is finding art as a passion, but is not necessarily aware of spirituality in any way. Is there any top or any word of wisdom that you might offer?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Well, what comes to mind is, you know, our guide, Sidi [Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id Al-Jamal Ar-Rifa’i], his words, which is, you know, “You have to know yourself to know your Lord.” You have to know yourself deeply.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And so, it's like, you know, there's, like, this beautiful curiosity about, like, What colors call to me? What marks do I want to make? What statements do I want to...? You know, whatever, whatever. 

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: Just… it's a way of really knowing your unique voice. And through that, knowing what qualities God has put in you.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, we all carry all the qualities, but we carry them in a little different, order, or a little different… like, some people have a lot of mercy, whereas some people have a lot of strength, or some people have, you know, and so as we get to know ourselves.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And when you're young, it's not so easy to know your unique voice in this world, because there's so much coming at you. So much external coming at you, coming in.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: So, creating space to really know what… what is coming through you in the depth of your being is really a beautiful practice, and there's so many ways you can arrive at that. Art is one of them, you know? Art is very meditative. You know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: I mean, it can be. Some people have, you know, a totally different approach to art than I do. I think because I never really, approached it as, like, I'm going to earn a living doing this, you know? It was more just a love.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: You know, it's something I love, I'm going to follow it.

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And then it had all these benefits. You know?

Yasmine Rahmana Cindy: And I think there's a lot of people who exercise in the same way, you know? Because I find that walking in nature, same thing, it creates this openness, and this beauty, and, and relaxation.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your experience of art as a spiritual practice.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I appreciate your wisdom and your willingness to share, so thank you.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: To all listeners for joining us on Beyond Names, before we go, if you would take one breath to pause and reflect for just a moment on what stays with you from this conversation with Cindy.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May something you heard today help you reconnect with the light in your own heart.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May you grow in compassion and clarity and courage.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May you find your way, again and again, back home to yourself, back home to the divine, however you name it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: If today's conversation spoke to you, please like, share, and comment on this episode, and please follow Beyond Names.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: To make an appointment with me, please visit https://www.habibboerger.com/. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Until next time, may you be light, may you consciously participate in growing your light, and may you share your light. Peace be with you.