Spring Creek Project Presents: The Nature of Gratitude
Gratitude is an inherent quality in our lives that we can always access. This is the basis for The Nature of Gratitude, an ongoing series of community gatherings exploring diverse aspects of gratitude through live music, spoken word, photography, and more. Each gathering coalesces around a theme, and supports a nonprofit cause that addresses universal human needs.
The theme for the spring 2026 event in the Ray Theater will be “unfurling,” reflecting spring’s inherent growth around and within us. The awareness cause will be the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition.
The event will include live music from internationally renowned vocalist Halie Loren, master guitarist/photographer and videographer Don Latarski, pianist Laura DuBois, and renowned slide guitarist and song stylist David Jacobs-Strain. Performance poet Jorah LaFleur will contribute spoken word pieces. Other contributors include three accomplished authors: memoirist and youth novel author Melissa Hart; Tom Titus, author of Palindrome: Grateful Reflections from the Home Ground; and Eric Alan, photographer and author of Wild Grace: Nature as a Spiritual Path and Grateful by Nature.
Learn more about the featured artists:
Eric Alan recently released his fourth book, Grateful by Nature. It includes photography and prose from his contributions to Celebrate What’s Right with the World, a project founded by National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones. His previous books include Wild Grace: Nature as a Spiritual Path. As a lyricist, he has collaborated with Halie Loren, Gypsy Soul, Laura Kemp, David Jacobs-Strain, Heather Hutton, and others.
Halie Loren is driven by a passion for authentic storytelling through music. Her award-winning original songs and 10 albums to date have topped international jazz charts, and her multi-lingual performances have delighted audiences and garnered dedicated fans for over a decade. She brings a fresh perspective to time-honored musical paths, channeling an innate understanding of connectedness across musical boundaries.
Don Latarski began studying guitar in 1963 and has released 15 albums, mostly of his own compositions. He was also head of guitar studies at the University of Oregon for 33 years. His explorations on guitar led him to author 21 different instruction books. In retirement he spends his time composing, recording, exploring intimate nature with his camera, walking, and riding motorcycles.
David Jacobs-Strain is a striking slide guitar player and song poet from Eugene, Oregon. His deep love of roots and blues music is evident in every one of the songs he writes. He studied masters like Robert Johnson, Taj Mahal, and Jackson Browne, but plays his own sound, his own song, with a style that is uniquely his. He’s currently in the recording studio with Eric Alan, co-founder of The Nature of Gratitude, producing and playing on an album of songs that has risen from the gratitude project.
Laura DuBois knows no greater joy than sharing the beauty of music. A life-long performer, music director and teacher, she is now passionately dedicated to using music as a healing art. She is the Executive Director of the nonprofit Connecting from the Heart, which works to heal and uplift vulnerable populations with music, meditation & mental wellness videos and in-person workshops. Laura is the music director at Unity of the Valley in Eugene, Oregon, and an ordained Unity minister.
Melissa Hart is an author and memoirist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, CNN, High Country News, Orion, and other publications. An Oregon Master Naturalist and a nature guide at Mount Pisgah Arboretum in Eugene, her latest book is Find Your Nature: 40 Ways to Deepen Your Connection to Your Flora, Fauna & Community. She's in the process of rewilding her backyard while planting oaks and maples with the Eugene chapter of Friends of Trees.
Tom Titus is an author, biologist, forager, father, grandfather, and free-range philosopher who writes at the messy interface of human experience and the natural world. He corralled divergent paths in music, education, and biology into a career in evolutionary genetics, and is a retired research biologist. Tom has authored three collections of essays. His latest book isDancing with an Apocalypse, is an attentive response to the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Tom blogs at "Words on the Nature of Life."
Jorah LaFleur is a spoken word poet and performer, actor, and event emcee. She also works with youth as a spoken word educator and teaching artist. Running and hosting the Eugene Poetry Slam for over a decade left her harboring the belief that live performance is magical. She is committed to helping others experience the transformative power of being heard, and to promoting the arts as tools of social change and community building.
Doors Open at 5 p.m. for Happy Hour
Join us for happy hour in Ray Theater, starting 30 minutes before the performance. Beer, wine and snacks will be available for purchase.
When
Begins at 5 p.m.
Where