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Encountering Wholeness
Remembering Who We Are
Remembering Who We Are Through Meditation, Writing, and Connection
Remembering Who We Are Through Meditation, Writing, and Connection
A two-and-a-half-day retreat in St. Paul MN
Retreat Description
There are moments in life when it feels as though something essential has been lost or damaged beyond repair. We carry wounds, disappointments, grief, and the accumulated weight of our lives, and gradually begin to believe that we ourselves have been diminished by them. We may imagine that wholeness is a distant destination—something achieved with enough insight, healing, or effort. Yet what if wholeness is not waiting somewhere ahead of us? What if it has been present all along—beneath every wound and every protective strategy, as something that cannot be broken?
This is the invitation then—not to another opportunity for self-improvement or to become someone different. Rather, we invite you into a space grounded in the understanding that our deepest nature is already whole. Through meditation, reflective writing, thoughtful teaching, poetry, large-group dialogue, and intimate conversations in pairs and small groups, we will create a spacious container in which we can slow down, turn inward, and attend more deeply. From that place, we can meet one another with greater honesty and compassion.
Together we can rediscover the wholeness that has never left us—a wholeness we come to know most fully when met by others with presence, curiosity, and care. In learning to see one another beyond the stories and strategies that have helped us survive, we begin to recognize the same wholeness within ourselves. We hope you will leave not as someone transformed into a different person, but more deeply acquainted with who you have always been.
An invitation to slow down, listen, write, and meet what is already here
Retreat Facilitators
Retreat Facilitators
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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.
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.
Ryan C. Van Wyk
Ryan C. Van Wyk
Ryan C. Van Wyk, PsyD, LP is a psychologist, contemplative practitioner, writer, and facilitator whose work explores what becomes possible when we slow down, pay attention, and meet ourselves and one another with greater presence and care.
For more than two decades, Ryan has worked in the field of mental health, with a particular focus on trauma, mindfulness, and the ways our relationships shape our capacity for healing and resilience. His clinical training includes certification in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and advanced training in mindfulness-based approaches to psychotherapy, compassion, grief, and trauma. Throughout his work as a therapist, teacher, and organizational leader, he has been especially interested in creating spaces where people feel safe enough to become more deeply acquainted with their own experience.
Ryan has maintained a contemplative practice for many years and has studied Zen with Flint Sparks since 2014. He received the Buddhist Precepts in 2024 and currently serves in a teaching role with Awakening Together Zen Community. He has facilitated meditation groups, retreats, workshops, and experiential trainings that bring contemplative practice into conversation with psychology, relationship, and everyday life.
Increasingly, writing has become another expression of Ryan’s contemplative practice. Through his Substacks, Uncommon Meeting and Uncommon Care, he writes about attention, relationship, resilience, leadership, beauty, grief, and what it means to meet our lives more fully. He also writes poetry—though, for now, most of those poems remain quietly tucked away.
At the heart of Ryan’s work is a simple curiosity: What might we discover when we become quiet enough to listen, spacious enough to welcome what arises, and present enough to truly meet one another?
The Venue
The Venue
TBD
TBD
Twin Cities, MN
Twin Cities, MN
Our gathering space has not yet been finalized.
Our gathering space has not yet been finalized.
Let us know if you'll be attending!
Let us know if you'll be attending!
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