David Oates will once again be going us at for the MRCSE Summer Conference and this year will be bringing with him his latest thinking on the Resurrection Bio concept -  Biology+spirituality+practical hopefulness and gittin-to-work! 

David has created a 2 day workshop "Daylighting the Invisible:  Revealing what connects us"  that he is excited to sharing with the MRCSE membership.  The MRCSE planning team still exploring ways to provide this whole experience at that workshop - but David is also willing to offer the workshop directly in your communities.  Below is more information about workshop.  MRCSE has applied for fund to help underwrite the cost of bringing David (and other Wise Elder and Story Teller programs) to your community.  If you are interested in hosting David please contact Christine Kelly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Daylighting the Invisible: Revealing What Connects Us

A workshop in nature and imagination

for teachers, writers, and environmentalists

Heart, Nature, World

Nature shows us an unstoppable renewing creativity. We need to recognize it, love it, and use it. It can empower our creative life as writers, teachers, activists, etc. Resurrection Biology is the joyous, determined environmentalism that will respond to the damaged world of the coming century.  This will require we…

Daylight Invisible connectedness: an ecological principal that is also a spiritual one.

Most environmental advocacy boils down to: "everything is connected to  everything else" "throw it away? There is no 'away'" etc.  Most spiritual traditions boil down to something remarkably similar: "Who is my neighbor? Who is my self?" (answers are troubling – everyone is your neighbor, and everyone is to be treated as yourself – the golden rule). The law of karma; as ye sow, so shall ye reap. On the spiritual plane, all actions are connected.  Our job is to "daylight" these hidden connections. Once seen, they profoundly alter behavior.  "Teaching" or "preaching" or "advocacy" comes down to asserting that, beneath the surface, seemingly disconnected actions are really linked together intimately. This asks for an imaginative leap: seeing what's not on the surface. Very real, but hidden, connectedness.

Rediscover natural process is creative process: letting pattern emerge.

Nature doesn't plan a critter or a landscape. It allows one to arise. Pattern emerges, self-organizes, and becomes very complex – patterns of patterns – ultimately including living beings with minds and, perhaps, spirits. Here's a mystery we'll never finish exploring. Creative process for humans often draws on the same principle: Patterning not planning. There's a place for outlines and left-brain control, but most writers, artists, and people working creatively in other fields report that the really good stuff  is discovered, not planned – it arises of its own accord when the moment is right. A bit of magic we learn to partner with, not control.  How can we capture the loose attentiveness that prepares for creative surprise and then lets it happen? What models can we learn from nature... and from each other?

Tell the tale of Resurrection Biology: an Environmentalism for the next hundred years.

Nature is always coming back. It is a creative force greater than any imaginable destruction (given enough time). In the instant that destructive forces abate, restoration and recreation begins. Asteroids, ice ages, volcanos, floods etc – nature patiently rebuilds after all of them. And what comes next is just as wonderful. As global warming destroys and overturns much natural organization, the situation will be quite ugly – many species lost; many suffering and displaced human beings. This will be a burden to the spirit and a human challenge perhaps greater than we can imagine. We will need heart. We will need to tell the tale of Resurrection Biology. This deep reality can be our source of profound hope. It's what will give us heart in the coming dark time. It will give us strength to do the hard practical work of salvaging and restoring.