Bridging Art and Death
For more than two decades, Dr. Angelina has explored grief, mourning and healing through the tradition of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and the ofrenda ritual.
What Is the Ofrenda Ritual?
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a tradition rooted in Indigenous Mexican culture and observed each year on November 1 and 2. Through altars, candles, marigolds, photographs, food, music, incense, and symbolic objects, loved ones are invited back into ceremonial presence through memory and ritual.
The word ofrenda translates literally into the word, offering. In a spiritual sense, an ofrenda is more than an offering, it is more than a ceremonial altar. It is an emotional and symbolic space where grief, love, memory, ancestry, and continuity of connection are brought into visible form.
Within Dr. Angelina’s workshops and experiential rituals, participants may create personal altars using photographs, flowers, candles, letters, symbolic objects, favorite foods, artwork, and meaningful items connected to loved ones who have passed. The ofrenda may also honor and process a loss of any kind. A relationship, a life transition, or a health challenge.
The process often becomes deeply personal and emotionally moving, allowing participants to engage grief through creativity, memory, and shared experience. Many describe the ritual as helping them reconnect not only with those they have lost, but also with parts of themselves that had become disconnected through grief.
"The process often becomes not only a way of honoring those who have died, but also a way of reconnecting with love, memory, identity, and healing within oneself."
- Dr. Angelina H. Rodriguez
If you’d like to learn more about the ofrenda ritual, Dr. Angelina’s documentary, The Ofrenda Ritual: Bridging Art and Death, examines how ritual artmaking can support the grieving process through a Jungian depth psychology perspective, integrating symbolism, creativity, memory, ancestral connection, and expressive arts practices into the emotional experience of mourning.
At the center of this work is the belief that grief is not something to simply “move past.” It asks to be witnessed, expressed, and honored.
Frequently Asked Questions
Experience the Healing
If you are holding an unresolved grief, longing, or a loss, you are invited to explore the ofrenda-making ritual.
Meet Dr. Angelina
Dr. Angelina H. Rodriguez is a Houston-based Jungian psychotherapist, speaker, and artist whose work explores the deeper emotional and symbolic patterns shaping human experience. Read more...
Currently accepting new patients and speaking opportunities.
