Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer served as featured guest of WholeHeart’s recent Poetry As Portal event online. She and Holly Wilkinson conversed about poetry as “companion” or a “living presence” that can accompany us through our most challenging days, providing passageway into our own hearts and souls. Enjoy this recap of the June event!
Dru Roessle, of Danville, Vermont, brings deep insight to the WholeHeart board of directors and beyond. She works as a facilitator of groups and teams problem-solving some of society’s most intractable problems. Dru centers relational justice in the spaces she engages in, believing that we already have what we need to create just systems that are designed for care, reciprocity, and collective well-being. Enjoy this provocative, inspiring interview!
On the eve of a full moon, WholeHeart launched its newest program series, Poetry As Portal, featuring Julie Cadwallader Staub, a poet from South Burlington, Vt. More than 40 participants gathered on Zoom, March 25th, to participate in the event, part-poetry reading, part-conversation with the poet, and part-listening exercise for attendees to reflect upon their own lives.
What does it mean to live one’s life like a prayer? Heather Omand, of Huntington, Vt., is pioneering a different human way of being in the world as a Queer person, mother, partner, and caretaker of agricultural lands. Read about their insightful journey. Listen to their prose, “What Queerness Means to Me.”
What does it mean to be in deeper relationship with the land where one lives? Three friends spent last summer wandering in the mountains of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, coming to know the plants/medicines growing on the land, preparing meals with the foods harvested, and learning to navigate the wind and waves off the coast of Maine. This story encapsulates some of their heartfelt insights gained.
We were warmed by the community of 50 friends who gathered online, December 11th, to celebrate WholeHeart's actual 10th birthday! Like radiant candlelights each of us, we relaxed into the gorgeous poetry of Vermont poet James Crews for just over an hour. We’ve included a brief recap here, as well as sharing some of the poetry that James featured during the celebration.
WholeHeart’s 2023 strategic planning process produced a recurring question from stakeholders interviewed for feedback: “what is WholeHeart and what does it do?” While our partners certainly understand the kind of convening work we do in local communities and beyond, we heard a desire for more concrete language to describe the organization’s mission and impact, so as to empower them to introduce more people to our work.
One of the ways that Marie Vea shares her gifts with the WholeHeart community is by serving on its board of directors for the past five years. One of her recent contributions was helping to realign the organization’s mission statement as part of a recent strategic planning process. Enjoy Marie’s poetic insights into WholeHeart-ed values such as “kinship with all beings” and what it means to live as if “everything was family.”
To all of the adults who have uttered, “for future generations” or “for the children” or “for my children,” I would suggest that we please cut ourselves off mid-sentence and hand the mic to the young people. This month, climate activist and WholeHeart community member, Eben Bein, waxes eloquent on his work of centering youth voice in the climate movement.
This month's blog brings the joy and melody of listening and wonder. Many thanks to the Vermont Courage Cohort and Ally Oswald and Rob Meyer, our Cohort facilitators, for sharing the culminating rhythms of a year's practice. This year’s spring retreat was held at Hallelujah Farm, in Keene NH. Below are reflections and resources that invigorated the Cohort and now ripple out to you.
In celebration of new partnerships and relational being, this month's blog is a telling of interconnectedness, land access, community, and the relations that tie it all together. On May 15 we facilitated our first LAOB (VT Land Access and Opportunity Board) meeting. We began by inviting board members: In the spirit of land access, share a favorite place or landscape you enjoy. Each person lit up talking about places of meaning and memory for them. The importance of this work and process could be felt in a vivid way.
