About Eda Ocak
Eda Ocak is a writer, astrologer and mindfulness practitioner. Eda graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with a BA in Turkish Language and Literature and an MA in Western and Contemporary Art History, in Istanbul, Turkey. Joining the Sawidji community as an author with unique perspectives from both Western and Eastern teachings. Sharing her insights amongst our community voices.
Getting to Know Eda Ocak
After graduation, she taught Turkish to foreigners in a private educational institution for 10 years. During these years, while developing her teaching skills with her students from all over the world, her perception and understanding of life expanded and deepened.
Biography
Eda discovered that she was a student of life at the same time as she was teaching. Her interests shifted from literature and art to mystical teachings, most notably Eastern teachings. Astrology attracted her curiosity and soon turned into a profession. After 5 years of astrology education, she started to provide astrology counselling and training. Her writings in this field are published in international astrology journals. One such article was selected and featured by http://www.astro.com, the world’s most visited astrology platform. She continues to give counselling in Turkish and English online. Visit Link.
Her interest in Eastern teachings led her to deepen her studies in Tibetan Buddhism. She received meditation and mindfulness teacher training at the Buddhist Studies Institute, Tibet House and Dharma Moon. Soon Eda began to walk this path as a teacher. Eda has also been developing and reinforcing her teaching skills through mentor and peer group works in the training programme opened by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, respected meditation teachers, since the spring of 2023.
Travels and Home
As she deepened in Buddhist teaching, her intense interest in the mind and consciousness led her to the joint studies of Buddhism and Western science. For this reason, she continues to deepen in this field as a student in the 3-year Contemplative Psychology programme offered by the Nalanda Institute, as well as in Interpersonal Neurobiology, an interdisciplinary study developed by Daniel J. Siegel.
Her article “Transforming Self-Comparison”, connected to the teaching of “no-self & anatman”, which has an important place in Buddhist philosophy, has been published on Lion’s Roar.
The State of Belonging
Eda brings all her education and experiences together in her Belonging Programme. As someone who migrated from east to west with her family at an early age, belonging and not belonging is a very fundamental issue that always resonates in her inner world. At the end of the day, all of her work has a connection with feeling more belonging to life and herself, and connecting with life from a more vibrant and awake place.
Writing and Ceramics
Eda, who has been expressing herself by writing poetically on many subjects of personal interest continues to discover her creativity and inner artist through ceramics in recent years.
I think the creative energy comes from a more primitive place when working with ceramics. Our relationship with the clay is much older than our relationship with words. Writing is not always a relaxing act, but working with clay is almost always calming, even when I fail to project the design in my head onto the clay.
Eda Ocak
How would you describe your experience when first travelling to Bali?
“Joy! If I had to describe it in one word, I would say joy. And I guess also mysterious. Art and nature intertwined in a marvellous way, which cheered me up. But on the other hand, there is always a mysterious side of Bali, a side that hides itself from you.”
How do you see art’s role in communities and the challenges that face them in the future?
“I think art is like a mirror of the human being, and I think this is its fundamental role in communities. All those emotions and feelings that I have difficulty expressing, digesting, regulating, that I can’t even name, I rediscover in myself through art. Imagine, let’s say I have a grief that I am not even aware of and a scene from a movie or a painting I see suddenly brings me to tears. That grief gets liberated from me through art and I function as a more balanced and sensitive individual in my community. The denial of this healing power of art may be the main challenge we might face in the future.”
How is individual and collaborative art process different?
I don’t think it is so different. Individually the art process is a process where one is a bit blind to oneself, but when we are in collaboration it becomes a more relational process and we are constantly bumping into ourselves and confronting ourselves through the medium of the other.
Eda Ocak
Art and Awareness
“Exactly! If I have to say assertively, if our ancestors had not discovered art, we would not have much awareness of ourselves beyond a few basic emotions.”
On Joining Sawidji Community
“I’m always inspired by the conversations we have with you and of course, I’m very excited about your vision for Sawidji, it’s great to be part of this community. You don’t take shortcuts, and you’re not interested in doing what everyone might like, which makes Sawidji a community where artists can be themselves and deepen.”
Eda Ocak
Evolutionary Astrology
As a mindfulness teacher and astrologer, Eda uses one’s birth chart as a guide to make peace with oneself. To recognize our gifts and to approach the areas where we struggle the most with compassion. With the guidance of her clients’ birth charts, she guides them to see their blind spots while at the same time offering practical suggestions. Pointing out possibilities that may not be seen before. At the end of a counselling session, you leave with a clear map of how much you have discovered about yourself and what more there is to discover. To get online astrology consultancy from Eda, you can contact her at the following email address: eda.ocak@gmail.com
