  We describe a variety of symplectic surgeries (not a priori compatible with
Kahler structures) which are obtained by combining local Kahler degenerations
and resolutions of singularities. The effect of the surgeries is to replace
configurations of Lagrangian spheres with symplectic submanifolds. We discuss
several examples in detail, relating them to existence questions for symplectic
manifolds with $c_1>0, c_1=0, c_1<0$ in four and six dimensions.
