Lilac In May: Art & Resistance
“…One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway…”
– Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Because”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, poet
Madeleine Jubilee Saito, artist
Aly Halpert, musician
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
7:00 – 8:30pm ET • Zoom • $20
Is art a luxury in an era of polycrisis?
If not, then what is the responsibility of the artist? The audience?
What is special or needed about the arts in the canon of our spiritual work?
Art & Resistance
In spring, The BTS Center invited you to a virtual celebration and calling to art and resistance.
We welcomed you to take part in the multimedia conversation between two renowned eco-spiritual artists and a singular musician whose work is prophetic and healing in their own ways.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Poet + educator
San Miguel County’s first poet laureate, former Western Slope Poet Laureate, co-host of Emerging Form and creator of The Poetic Path
Madeleine Jubilee Saito
Cartoonist + visual poet
Inaugural artist-in-residence at On Being, artist of All We Can Save anthology, featured in LA Times, HuffPost, and more
Aly Halpert
Musician + activist
Music & prayer leader at Let My People Sing, Kol Tzedek Synagogue, Dayenu, Hadar’s Rising Song Institute
This event is a companion to The BTS Center’s Spring Book Study: Poetry & the Prophetic Voice.
Tuesdays, May 5 – June 9, 2026
4:00 – 5:30pm ET • Online
About the Presenters
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator who co-hosts Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, Washington Post’s Book Club, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding. In 2024, she became poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief and love through poetry. Since 2006, she’s written a poem a day, sharing them on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. One-word mantra: Adjust. Learn more at wordwoman.com.
Madeleine Jubilee Saito
Madeleine Jubilee Saito is a cartoonist and artist from rural Illinois, and the author of the comics collection You are a Sacred Place: Visual Poems for Living in Climate Crisis. She was an inaugural artist-in-residence at On Being, the public radio podcast about spirituality. Her comics opened each section of the bestselling anthology of women’s writing about climate, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Her work has been featured in the LA Times, HuffPost, and Guernica Magazine, and was mentioned as a notable work in Best American Comics 2019. Learn more at madeleinejubileesaito.net.
About the Musician
Aly Halpert
Aly Halpert (she/her) is a queer Jewish musician, educator, and activist living on Lenni Lenape land in Philadelphia, PA, USA. A singer, pianist, drummer, and guitar player, Aly writes songs for building community and visioning different worlds. She leads music and prayer for Jewish community, including Let My People Sing, Kol Tzedek Synagogue, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, & Hadar’s Rising Song Institute. Her songs have been sung in national gatherings, song circles, and quiet moments of personal prayer, and have moved people all over the world. Her first full-band album Loosen was released in April 2022 with Rising Song Records. Aly believes deeply in the power of music to awaken us to the loss and hope we carry, expand our sense of possibility, and connect us to each other and our collective strength. Learn more at alyhalpert.com.
With any questions, please contact
Rev. Nicole Diroff at nicole@thebtscenter.org.
Our Program Partners
