HOSTS & ORGANIZERS: More information just for you. Note that all shorter presentations are also available in expanded workshop formats (one-hour and two-hour), in which participants go deeper into the material, to digest and personalize as well as create community together.
There is tremendous flexibility for setting up an event. Talks can be delivered as webinars, video-conferences, recordings, or in person. Use the Contact tab to explore options with me. Note that “multimedia” means the talk includes extensive use of images and video.
All of these are available as short presentations of the stated length OR as expanded workshops of one to three hours. Workshops allow participants to go deeper into the material, to digest and personalize it as well as create community together.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, 40 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
With help from some intrepid dung beetles, science ambassador JD Stillwater takes us on a tour of discoveries from mainstream science that reveal an underlying connectedness in everything from human bodies to ecosystems to the very fabric of space-time.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
What are we, crazy?! Some aspects of our inherited cultural system are clearly harmful to our planet, our descendants, and our own humanity. How did this happen? The study of trauma and the science of epigenetics offer clues. In the context of our damaged and dysfunctional culture, acting with honor for our ancestors, respect for ourselves, and love for future generations often looks like rudeness or radical defiance. Sometimes, Love requires us to defy our own heritage.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
That humans are having major impacts on the planet is now quite clear, and some of those impacts may be evident millions of years from now. Are we a cancer on the biosphere, a plague? Would it be better if we had remained blissfully in the stone age? Our angst about such matters may be no more helpful to building sustainable systems than is white guilt in forging racial justice. JD somehow relates all of this to romantic relationships, parenting teenagers, and Joni Mitchell.
Spoken. 20 min.
One of our culture’s foundational myths is about ownership, security, and permanence. None of these occurs in nature! JD offers some science, some personal experiences, and a Talking Heads song as puzzle pieces toward a new, more vulnerable humility.
Multimedia. 20- and 45-minute versions, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Underlying the human world of strife and separation is an oft-neglected landscape of commonality between faiths: the natural world. At precisely the time when our religious and political divisions threaten the existence of life on Earth, science offers a sweeping interfaith vista filled with revelations and insights as spiritually meaningful as ancient scriptures. Read as “scripture,” science offers a common text for all the world’s faiths.
Death is a thief that steals our loved ones, breaks our hearts, and ravages our lives. One of life’s few guarantees, death will come for each of us in time. What good is it? Does the natural world offer hints at deeper purposes that might help us befriend Death?
Befriending the Thief: Remembering Mary Oliver
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Science and poetry on death. Mary Oliver’s poetry often touched on death as integral to life, and when enriched by understandings from science, her beautiful words inspire a new, friendlier relationship with it.
Befriending the Thief: Science and the Meaning of Death
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
More science, no poetry. From Cosmology to Evolution, science reveals the essential role death has played in making our existence possible. Death is no enemy; death is a gift from the past that we will pay forward.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Eggs and seeds are quintessential symbols of birth and spring, but did you ever really contemplate the magic that hides inside them? The new science of emergence is like 1+1 = poetry; it’s magic, but also rigorous science, and spring is full of this magical unfolding. The secret is (shhh…) we are that magic, too!
Multimedia. 20 min talk.
New research into the experience of awe reveals that awe makes us feel small but deeply connected, and how this in turn makes us better people. With help from some well-timed lightning strikes (and no help from Siri or Alexa), we’ll explore what’s known about awe’s effects on us, and how it can benefit humanity. We’ll also learn how science can help us experience awe, plugging us into a grander vision of our larger selves within our communities, world, and universe.
Multimedia. 20 min talk.
In this sequel to Part 1, waterfalls cascade us deeper into the science of awe, including: the wonderful word “eudæmonia”; the gifts of people who are pre-disposed to experience awe; and the relations between awe, wonder, spirituality, and ambiguity.
Multimedia. 20 min talk.
In this explosive service, JD explores how awe can be manipulated for better and worse, in recreation, politics, education, and war. We will probe the boundary between awe and horror, and consider things that snap, crackle, pop, and echo through culverts, saxophones, and history.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Do you despise the question “What do you believe?” JD Stillwater gets real about his own personal beliefs, and discovers an evidence-based approach towards a New Agnosticism, one that fully embraces the mysteries and ambiguities inherent in natural reality. Along the way we meet a cryptic cat, a famous psychic, a woman with a question, and a religious organization for atheists. The exclamation “Poppycock!” also makes a cameo appearance.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
[Fathers-Day themed, but good anytime]
JD describes lessons learned from his do-it-yourselfer father and grandfathers, and how those lessons might be applied to building a new way for our increasingly precarious global society. What kind of world do we want for our grandchildren, and for their grandchildren? Are we behaving accordingly? Building is not easy or comfortable—are we willing to do what it takes? [Especially good around Father’s Day]
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Our dependence on fossil fuels looks an awful lot like addiction. Could the 12 steps of AA offer any helpful guidance as we seek a way out? If climate change is a moral/spiritual crisis, maybe a 12-step-style “spiritual awakening” can help.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Failure to define “enough” means never being satisfied. It makes us vulnerable to slick advertising, and fills our lives with tedium and chaos. It deflects our focus from sources of true happiness, like play, family, relationships, community. Ultimately, it also leads to the desecration of Earth’s living systems. Defining “enough” is a spiritual practice.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
When the entire planet is engulfed in flames (climate change, nuclear arms, fascism, extinction, mass migration), isn’t full-time activism the only reasonable activity? Isn’t everything else a kind of indulgence? What if activism just isn’t your thing? What if your talents and passions lie in something like fiddling, or poetry? JD shares his own wrestlings with this quandary, and where they have led him.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Social polarization is a natural, predictable phenomenon. So is manure. JD Stillwater recounts a profound event of peace-making and innovation that happened one afternoon long ago in a warehouse full of manure. The technology required for understanding and group intelligence is simple and ancient. Manure is optional.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
Today’s culture war pushes us to perceive spirituality and science as enemies, and holds up a false dichotomy between reason and mystery. The universe, as science reveals it, speaks only of transcendent unity, and holds up Mystery as both muse and ground of reason.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
What evolutionary purpose is served by living so long after our reproductive years are done? This talk explores the spiritual and social fertility of every life stage in a beloved community, an inclusive fertility especially enhanced in our later years. Not likely to be a grandparent himself, JD Stillwater takes the opportunity to scrutinize the grandparenting role, with an eye towards broadening and deepening its power and promise for every life stage and relationship.
Multimedia. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
[Halloween-themed]
Ancestors – everyone has them, and (spoiler alert!) most of them are dead. Euro-American culture isn’t very good at death; we are so scared of death we’ve perverted the one day each year our ancestors set aside for remembering them to instead focus on giving children candy and expressing our fear with giant inflatable spiders. JD shares his journey from judging his ancestors to questioning his fitness to be one. As always, science plays a leading role, along with several other faith traditions and cultures.
Spoken. 20 min talk, or longer workshop 1-3 hrs.
[Easter-themed]
Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal. Easter, whose name comes from the pagan celebration of Ostara, celebrates spring within the Christian theology of resurrection and the defeat of death. Science offers a springtime way of thinking about death and resurrection, one infused with hope, renewal, legacy, even rebirth.
Music-intensive.
[Late Autumn theme]
As the turning Earth carries us into the deepening darkness of winter, and looming shadows of hate and hurt plunge the world into an anxious twilight, we pause. In such times, we draw closer, offering our mutual support and affection. In darkening times, we renew our commitment to all love’s forms, affirmed in word and deed in beloved community and among all living beings.
NOTE: This is a talk embedded in music, in a service infused with music. It requires strong accompaniment, a capable song leader, and a group accustomed to singing together.
JD Stillwater teams up with award-winning musicians to marry song with science, music with mystery, and bring delight and resolve to uncertain times.
Multimedia + live music performance. 2.5 hours.
Cosmology in Concert is an immersive multimedia experience of the awe and wonder offered by natural reality, and an appreciation for the science that reveals it to us. Part live concert (Peter Mayer) and part inspiring science adventure (JD Stillwater), we will celebrate our cosmic story with reverence and gratitude.
Cosmology in Concert has its own website: CosmologyInConcert.com
Multimedia + live music performance. 2.5 hours.
Science educator JD Stillwater teams up with award-winning songwriter Darryl Purpose for an evening of live music, science, revolutionary love, and inspiration to re-imagine and repair our world. Bring your joy, your exhaustion, your love for this world, your laughter, your hope, your dismay, your voice, and your friends.
The Great Turning Roadshow has its own website: greatturningroadshow.com
Multimedia + live music performance. 2.5 hours.
Celebrate the earth with this unique music and science experience. Sarah Goslee Reed’s original songs ask questions, challenge us, and inspire us to improve our relationships with one another and the earth. JD Stillwater’s multi-media presentations offer Earth-affirming revelations and insights from science. This integrative experience will move your mind and spirit toward a new, more sustainable worldview.
These workshops form the basis for a new paradigm, a worldview richly informed by what we know about natural reality. This is science, in service of awe, wonder, and a big-picture orientation.
In these workshops we take nature to heart, letting ourselves be profoundly moved by what is known, and going deeply into the implications for how we orient ourselves in the cosmos.
Multimedia. 1.5 hour and 2.5-hr versions. Seven Candles is a multimedia exploration of the spirituality inherent in modern mainstream science. We live at a time when discoveries by the scientific community are challenging our perceptions of reality. As in Galileo’s time, we can choose to experience these new-found truths as problems, or we can embrace them, striding towards a deeper, more connected life.
Seven Candles is neither “proof of God,” nor “proof there’s no God,” although both have been said by participants! Seven Candles is just science, described in a way that deliberately uncovers, emphasizes, and embraces the profound implications of scientific revelations.
Multimedia. 2.5 hours.
This interactive multimedia experience applies Seven Candles insights to what the world needs in this time of crumbling systems. We watch in dismay as ecosystems, political systems, economic expectations, civil society, and climate systems fall apart all around us. How can we each contribute to a world better aligned with how reality actually works? How can our thinking and behavior be more life-affirming, more sustainable, more satisfying?
This flagship workshop applies science insights from the original Seven Candles presentation to a world in crisis, asking and answering the question “What does the world need now?”