00:00 Introduction
01:40 Who is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer?
03:10 All The Honey
04:20 How did you become a poet?
07:50 What opened your heart as a child?
08:19 A poem a day.
09:20 "I wrote the first bare line...pure wisdom...pure foolishness"
10:40 Poetry and dealing with darkness and her son's death.
14:00 Turning Towards What is True.
14:43 It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be true.
16:00 How my daily practice of writing helped me not shut down.
16:34 Finn's amazing light, compassion and how he shined so brightly.
21:22 Wrestling with being true - a poem.
22:50 The friction of contradiction becoming the poetry of paradox
23:49 POEM: Two Truths (about her son's death)
26:00 How those we love become more present through their physical abscence...
27:00 The necessity of creativity to survive the greatest challenges and traumas
28:40 It is in our most desperate places that we need creativity to survive
29:00 The importance of community - sharing our creativity with others.
30:00 Loss is the place beauty starts...
32:00 Van Gogh and a multi-media project that was so healing
32:54 A synchronicity with a bunnie appearing during our interview!
36:00 Vincent Van Gogh's sister-in-law and brother Theo having preserved his legacy.
37:50 Bearing the fruit we came here to bear.
40:00 How can we see our story so we can see through the story.
42:00 POEM: The Invitation
44:40 Hearing silence more deeply...and silence as a powerful honoring...
47:00 Who are your people?
48:46 People of the Twilight
50:35 Living with a foot in both worlds
51:37 Rilke and the Darkness - Faith in Night
54:20 Endarkenment
58:30 Wanting to Die
1:03:00 Poignant Mysterious Synchronicities with Finn
1:06:00 Amor Fati and honoring what happens on the River of Life
1:10:00 Connecting with those on the other side of things...
1:13:00 Being with What Is...
1:14:38 POEM: Going Deeper Into The Mystery
1:16:43 Spaciousness of Heart
1:18:55 Being Carried
1:22:00 NEW BOOK: "The Unfolding" comes out in October
I came across one of Rosemerry's poem and was immediately hooked by her authenticity and depth in her poetry. After reaching out to her and receiving such a kind response I was so grateful for her willingness to be on The Other Side of things!
Be prepared for one of our deepest dives on The Other Side of Things. Our soulversation took us into some profound spaces and silences that I found personally so deeply enriching and meaningful. I felt truly transformed by our time together, and I hope you will too.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal) and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Rosemerry has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Find her daily poems on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available on your phone with the Ritual app. She is the author of Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to deepen your writing practice, and her poetry album, Dark Praise, explores “endarkenment,” available anywhere you listen to music. Her most recent collection is All the Honey, and in October, 2024 she’ll release The Unfolding with Wildhouse Publishing. In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, and is helping others explore grief, bereavement, wonder and love through poetry.
Website: https://www.wordwoman.com/
Daily poetry blog: https://ahundredfallingveils.com/
Daily poetry app for your phone: https://app.ritual.io/rosemerry
Podcast on creative process: Emerging Form http://emergingform.com/
Newest Book: All the Honey https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-the-honey-rosemerry-wahtola-trommer/18666020
TEDx: The Art of Changing Metaphors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXC3-ZFkhDo
Poetry album on “Endarkenment”: Dark Praise https://rosemerrywahtolatrommer.bandcamp.com/album/dark-praise
Upcoming Book: Unfolding https://wildhousepublishing.com/the-unfolding/
Michael's website: https://michaeldemaria.com/