Exploring the Wonder of It All: An Evening of Poetry and Music
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Kayleen Asbo
What if we could meet every part of our life, from our birth to our death, with wonder? How do we fall in love with the world, even in the midst of heartbreak or anxiety? How is it possible that heartbreak might be an essential part of opening us to wonder?
Join us for an evening of poetry, song, piano, and storytelling with poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, accompanied by pianist Kayleen Asbo. Kayleen is composing four original pieces for the four gates of wonder Rosemerry identifies in her new book, The Wonderment—The Opening, The Noticing, The Deepening, and The Belonging.
Trommer says, “I wanted to write a book that was so teeming with aliveness that when you read or hear the poems, you feel as if a little more life sticks to you… the way golden pollen sticks to a bee’s legs.” The evening will also include a brief conversation with the audience near the end.
“At a time when we wonder how to keep our spirits alive, here’s a collection of poems to open our hearts to the wonderment at the heart of life,” says Parker J. Palmer, Founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal and author of Let Your Life Speak. “For me, Rosemerry Wahtola Tommer has become an essential poet.”
Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance, says, “Rosemerry’s words help me feel the radical amazement of life—something I cherish and so often forget. These poems arise from a deep intimacy with the mystery we are part of; they nourish the heart and spirit.” | Photo credit: Wildhouse Publishing
Saturday, January 23
2 pm – 4 pm PST
In Gallery Commonweal and on Zoom
$25 suggested donation, no one turned away
Saturday, January 23
2 pm – 4 pm PST
In Gallery Commonweal and on Zoom
$25 suggested donation, no one turned away
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has written and shared a poem a day since 2006. Her daily poems can be found on her blog A Hundred Falling Veils. A curated version is available on her daily audio series The Poetic Path on the Ritual app. Her new book of poems The Wonderment (Wildhouse Poetry 2026) is available at booksellers everywhere.
She co-hosts Emerging Form (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, Washington Post’s Book Club, 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. Her most recent books are All the Honey, The Unfolding, and Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice. Her spoken-word albums include Dark Praise and Risking Love.
As poet laureate for Evermore, she helps others explore grief, wonder, and love through poetry. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison.
Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning. If limited to one word: Adjust.
Kayleen Asbo
Kayleen is a passionate scholar: a cultural historian, musician, writer and teacher who weaves myth, music, psychology, history and art with experiential learning. A past faculty member of the Pacifica Graduate Institute and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Kayleen also taught for the Osher Life Long Learning Institutes at UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and Dominican University. Kayleen has been a guest presenter and lecturer on the intersection of history, mythology, psychology and the arts at Oxford University in England, the Assisi Institute of Depth Psychology Conference in Italy, the Houston Jung Institute, Chartres Cathedral in France, the Cambridge Jung Institute, Grace Cathedral and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. As the founder and Creative Director for Mythica, Kayleen now offers online salons of music and art, workshops on the intersection of Myth and Jungian Psychology, and Virtual Pilgrimages to sacred sites in Europe every month.
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