08.18.2025. Yes, Yes, to “The All of It”
Hello dear Friends,
“Please, I said as I stood in the rows.
Please, come. Is it possible the asking itself
is the bridge from the everyday to the holy?”
– Rosemary Wahtola Trommer
Some days the heart is breaking, and we don't know what to do—today is such a day. I keep hearing this offering whispering, riding on the winds, soft as butterfly wings, fierce as the thunderstorm that rolled through last night, prematurely dropping leaves, filling my bones with the whispers of autumn and her dharma of letting go. Even though mid-August still hangs heavy with her hot-humid air, the flowers in my garden seem to be saying, yes we feel it too, the last glory of summer’s full bloom–offering me the teachings of impermanence, of change.
And that is what is heartbreaking good and bad news: everything changes, blooms, dissolves, becomes ash, dies and fades. As my dharma teacher said to me on a sobering day a long time ago, when my heart felt unmendable—me desperately seeking permanence and solid ground—she said, "Nothing is black and white; there are no guarantees in life." (I remember ‘hating’ that. It was not what ‘I’ wanted to hear. I was caught, cycling in thought, grasping-on, desperately seeking fixed ground.) She continued, "But the ground you can take root in, have confidence in, is the Holy and the tender truth of change–the holy brokenness of suffering and the holy breaking open of love.”
A teaching to share that I keep near, may it offer you care: What keeps your life and practice sacred are three things: making offerings, requesting blessings, and dedicating merit.
I hear this too in Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's poem, "So Alive," and Aly Halper's song, "Loosen," both posted below. The key is the “asking”.
One way to make offerings is simply by striking a match from your heart to your hand, lighting a candle, and asking the Holy to come, please come illuminate what is here, what needs your tender care; bring more light. You request blessings by asking your lineage—whatever that may be for you, a sacred dharma lineage, a nature lineage, or an ancestral and angel lineage—for their help, guidance, support, and protection. You close your day with gratitude, dedicating merit–you share, ask the light you cultivated to surround someone in need of warmth and care.
And vital to all of this is gratitude (left hand over heart, right hand on top)—for having a body, for breath, for a heart that is willing to open, willing to say yes, yes to "the all of it"—the murky messiness of this life with no guarantees, the breaking us apart, the breaking us open—the rich humus of beauty and sorrow, the soil of love.
Come Join Me Today
We will begin our time with a guided 7-point posture into 10 minute silent meditation, followed by a Metta meditation practice.
Drop-in Meditation Monday
All are welcome; no prior experience is needed—just bring an open heart.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Guided & Metta Meditation Practice
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Conversations on the Practice of Meditation
Location: 1765 Glenview Road, Glenview (in the Patio Shops)
Donations are gratefully accepted.
A bow of gratitude we are here together,
Love, Wini
Scroll below: 2 Poems, 3 Quotes, 2 spoken Poems. 1 Events Truly A-Not-to-Miss, 1 Closing Song, and goodness between. Made with ♥️.
💌 Know someone who needs a little goodness for their heart? Please share! If this was forwarded to you, subscribe for your own copy
🌸 Two Poems
August | Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
Harmony | Stuart Kestenbaum
You know the Beatles could have
afforded another microphone,
but George would always stand
in the middle and step up to
Paul's when it was time to
join in. Because that's the way
harmony is, you need to share the
electricity, the voice, the words.
Just the way we do when we drive
in our cars with the radio on,
the windows rolled down with fall in the
air, dead leaves swirling in the wake,
or in the spring, the earth damp and soft,
the air hazy with pollen. We hear
the song that moves us, crank the
radio and sing along, at the top of
our lungs, as if we just joined
the group. In tune out of tune,
country western, rock and roll, we want
to harmonize. A whole country of
would-be stars losing love, finding love
with the radio in different
cars, on different paths, the dark
road rumbling beneath.
🌿 Who does not remember this–the wild, abandoned joy, windows down, radio loud, hair and laughter flying, driving just to drive, with your ‘would-be stars’ friends, yourself included in that stardom –heart and four wheels, free!
This I know– the body, the soul, the earth needs–harmony, one of the holiest of medicines needed today—each of us singing in tune, out of tune, does not matter, just singing out our sacred song! Free.
🌸 Three Quotes | Ursula K. Le Guin. James Hollis. Joanna Macy.
“Living through one of the profoundest changes a human body-soul can undergo — menopause, long cottoned in the euphemism “change of life” — Ursula K. Le Guin writes:
The woman who is willing to make that change must become pregnant with herself, at last. She must bear herself, her third self, her old age, with travail and alone. Not many will help her with that birth.” — Maria Popova, The Margainalian: Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders
“Going was dying, and staying was dying. When we get to junctures like that, we had better choose the dying that enlarges rather than the one that keeps us stuck.” — James Hollis, 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵
“Trust the love that comes in you, that erupts in you, for life itself, for all beings. Trust that. Trust your impatience sometimes when you think there must be a better way of conceiving this. Trust that, and garb yourself in the patience of intense creativity. Listen to the wild thoughts that are there. Listen to the wild thoughts bringing us home.” — Joanna Macy
🌿 This is always my prayer for myself, for others, and for the world: that we trust—a bone-level trust—and listen to the 'wilds,' the creative impulses, the sacred offerings riding relentlessly on the winds. Sometimes on a soft butterfly-wing wind, others on a torrential rain-storm wind, both lead us home to our saving grace, to our holy 'jams,' our dharma to breathe into the worlds we each walk in. May we not put a lid on it.
“If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound, the real sound,
which is inside you.” ― Kabir
🌸 Did You See? | Rosemary Wahtola Trommer & Maria Popova (Two of my favorites)
What a glorious share! Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who will be here in Chicago in September, one of her poems on wonder was recently featured on The Marginalian—a must-subscribe, curated by Maria Popova. (I've been reading it for years!) The post explores how play and wonder help us be more alive and love the world more deeply. Maria Popova even reads the poem, which you can listen to here!
Even more glorious, those here in the Chicago area, how lucky are we–we get to spend the day with Rosemerry– to play, wonder, and be with "The All of It—the Beauty and Sorrow."
One more tender glorious share: When I read Rosemerry’s ‘Poem-A-Day’ (yes, she sends one out every day–you too can receive,sign up here), I was so touched to see my own name in her poem "So Alive,".
Please come join me: I know this for sure, much like the poem "Harmony" I posted above— in this complicated rich time, filled with so much aching beauty, holy sorrow, and all the in-betweens of living, a day of gathering in community is holy medicine.
This one-day retreat with Rosemerry is not just about poetry or writing. It's a truly life-affirming, stunning time of remembering, listening, and unfolding what is true in your hearts. And the truest gem being seen in community–letting your heart be fed.
When: Saturday, September 27 9:00 am - 3:00 pm (Lunch included) Valley Lo Club, Glenview. Three ticket prices available. Buy your ticket here.
🎶 Give a tender to listen to Rosemerry reading Though I Knew Love Before
A poem about grief, loss and the great wave of love. holy-amen.
🌸 Closing Song 🎶 | Loosen by Aly Halpert
A beautiful close to what keeps our life and practice sacred: making offerings, requesting blessings, and dedicating the merit –sending light to those in pain, to those in need of care, and to all the suffering on the planet–this song "Loosen" by Aly Halpert.
It is about asking the Holy, requesting help to ease, to loosen the pains and the heartaches we each carry in small and big ways.
And falling in love with her heart, read Aly’s About Me on her website:
“Aly writes songs for building community, working for collective liberation, and visioning different worlds. With skill as a composer, guitarist, pianist, drummer and vocalist, Aly has created music for young people growing up in queer families, Jewish prayer, movements for justice and everywhere in between. Her songs support those moving through grief, praying for change, and connecting with the divine.”
🎶 Listen here (4:48 min)
Loosen, loosen, baby
You don’t have to carry
The weight of the world in your muscles and bones
Let go, let go, let go
Holy breathe, and holy name
Will you ease, will you ease this pain
Oh holy breathe, and holy name, will you ease this pain?
🌸 In all Mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer–even here, I am called to thank the Holy for inspiration, for perseverance, for this showing up, even so– prayers of blessing, gratitude and protection.
“May you open to the winds of the Divine, the soft tender ones,
and the weather alert warning ones–that come to wake us up!
May you ask! Ask the Holy to come.
Perhaps it is in the asking that opens the locks over our hearts.
May all beings be safe and protected."
Have a blessed day,
Love, Wini 💖
🌸 Share the Light!
If this Metta Newsletter resonates with you, you have the power to amplify its reach. Will you help spread this tender kindness and care? Share Metta with a friend who could use a dose of sweet goodness in their life.
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✨ may we bloom more Light.
💞 may we grow more Goodness for the healing of all.
🌎 may each of us stitch more heart-tenderness into the fabric of our planet.
….Until next week. 💖 ✨
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
