Belonging – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:34:18 +0000

And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together,
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it,
the green fuse that ignites us,
the wild thrum that unites us,
an inner hum that reminds us
of our shared humanity.
Just as thirty-five trillion
red blood cells join in one body
to become one blood.
Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand
notes make up one symphony.
Alone as we are, our small voices
weave into the one big conversation.
Our actions are essential
to the one infinite story of what it is
to be alive. When we feel alone,
we belong to the grand communion
of those who sometimes feel alone—
we are the dust, the dust that hopes,
a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,
the dust that dances in the light
with all other dust, the dust
that makes the world.

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

A good poem for a day when the ‘adult aloneness‘ that David Whyte speaks of, tips into loneliness. I woke up this morning with a heaviness in my heart, a nameless sadness that weighed down my movements and dampened the enthusiasm I often feel for the day. And with it, a turning into myself, a disconnect from others. Sound familiar?

Until… the remembering the kinship with others feeling heaviness and aloneness. The poet, teacher and writer Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer says it so beautifully here: “When we feel alone, we belong to the grand communion of those who sometimes feel alone”… And although it wasn’t a magic wand transforming what was there, the isolation lifted and there was a softening rather than a bracing against. There will be days like this, and that’s ok.

PS if you’d like to explore how to respond with compassion to the inevitable challenges of life, our Mindfulness Level 2 – Responding with Compassion is worth looking at!

Photo by Jonas Weckschmied on Unsplash

Inside It All – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 07:53:25 +0000

Beneath the masks, beneath the names,
beneath ideals, beneath the shoulds
is a thrumming, ecstatic atomic swirl,
unseen and omnipresent, inescapable
and holy—a divine blurring of being,
a realm of charge and energy—
most of it empty space. Sometimes,
I remember this. Perhaps walking
in the woods or standing in the midst
of a city’s whir, perhaps working in the kitchen
or singing in a choir, I remember
who we really are, remember
not with mind but with being,
and I’m lost in it, found in it,
alive in the cloud of it, astonished
with the sacred design of it,
elegant soup of it,
elemental swirl of it all.
How is it I sometimes
see only woman, man,
cottonwood, spider, self, other,
other, other, other?
We walk this journey
of separation together.
Oh, being who is lonely,
remember?

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I really appreciate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer‘s naming of the glorious interconnectedness that I sometimes experience, alongside the heartaching loneliness and separateness that I also know well. And yes, isn’t it a curious thing that we can shift between the two? She has written another poem which feels related, it starts with ‘And if it’s true we are alone, we are alone together’…

It comforts me that the two are so close together, even on the days I can’t seem to make the shift out of the aloneness. It reminds me of a quote I read by Chogyam Trungpa in this book about contemplative photography, about how the difference between a good and a great photograph can be a tiny shift in angle. So it’s not about needing to go far for the brilliant picture, or to strive hard to somehow earn the belonging – it’s here already. And maybe, with practice, we can more and more become rooted in the one, while vividly remembering what it’s like to experience the other as a reality…

Picture by Fiona Dodd

belonging Archives - Mindfulness Association

Belonging – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Inside It All – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer