Institute of World Culture
Program for 2025
Theme for the Year:
CONCORD AND COMMUNITY
Saturday, January 11th, 2025
2:00–4:00 pm (PST). Free and open to all.
Live webcast (details below) and
In Person at
Concord Hall, 1407 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara, CA
Presenters: Robert Moore and Kirk Gradin
Ancient wisdom traditions as well as poets and mystics from diverse cultures, portray the entire cosmos as a vast unified community, each living being indissolubly and interdependently interconnected with all other beings, each mirroring the whole in resplendent, though largely invisible, concord. On the visible human plane, however, we often seem enmeshed in polarization, internal and external disharmony, discord and strife with neighbors, communities, sects and institutions. What lies at the roots of such conflict and where are the hidden aquifers of healing solidarity and fraternity? Can philosophical and practical idealism, aims, paradigms and their resonant exemplars, past or present, help us move more wisely and creatively toward the white light of reconciliation, the restoration of harmonious kinship with each other and with Nature despite our diversities, current faults and past failures? This forum will attempt to engage us in such pressing questions as an introduction to the Institute of World Culture’s 2025 keynote theme: “Concord and Community.”
Biographical Information
Robert Moore is a life-long student of Plato and of wisdom traditions East and West. He has lived a life of service to the Santa Barbara community as an RN in acute rehabilitative medicine with a second career in non-profit educational programing and planning. As a member of IWC since its inception, he is known as a center of communal harmony, good humor and intuitive insight.
Kirk Gradin is a semi-retired local architect, illustrator and writer on topics of mystic philosophy, the spiritual in the arts and mythic symbolism. He has given recent presentations on ‘Pythagorean Harmonics’, ‘New Paradigms of Consciousness’, the Irish mystic George William Russell, and Henry David Thoreau.
Live webcast begins at the same time as the in-person program at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/user/iwcinsantabarbara/streams
A video of this program will also be available at the same link for future viewing.
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