Coming Online and Onsite Events
Become a subscriber in the Community of Lifelong Learners for $40 per month for unlimited attendance at on-site and online events, or $25 per month for only ONLINE events. Subscribers are responsible for ordering their own books. One-day ONSITE seminar tuition is $125 per person for non-subscribers. Special events have differing tuition. Scholarships are available for teachers and students. Please inquire via email here.
Online Weekly Intensives
Online Seminar Series - NOW ENROLLING
Drinking from The Fount:
Divine Union in the Carmelite Tradition
NEW DATE: Wednesday Evenings - July 9 - August 27, 2025
What does it mean to seek the face of God, to live in His presence in silent meditation and contemplation? Each Carmelite mystic experienced God in their own unique way, lighting the way for contemporary seekers of all traditions in their search for divine union. Like Dante, these explorers attempted to describe their own journeys up Mount Carmel to the peak of divine union.
Carmelite spirituality is one of many in the Christian tradition. Over 800 years ago, hermits gathered to live in solitary cells on Mount Carmel near the prophet Elijah’s spring, meditating day and night on scripture, and establishing a rule of life. Following in their footsteps, subsequent Carmelites have sought to also stand in silence, waiting for God to pass by.
Taking time to read and discuss together their experiences of the divine, we will together enter into their journeys for a while, meditating on their words, perhaps drinking from the same fount that slaked Elijah’s thirst.
Online seminars in this series will take place on Wednesday evening, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent the anthology of readings, The Carmelite Tradition by Steven Payne on Amazon, ISBN: 978-0-8146-1912-4. Sessions will be facilitated by Clare McGrath-Merkle. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered 2 CEU credits for participating. This eight-week series is $425. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $50 through a refund. Payment options are available.
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Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING
Lyric Poetry: Nature, Love, and Death
Wednesday Evenings - March 19 - May 28, 2025
When Aristotle describes the genres of poetry in his poetics, he spends the most time on tragedy, commenting briefly on the other genres comedy and epic. He mentions a fourth genre only glancingly: dithyrambic poetry, named for the musical instrument which was known to accompany this form. Also known as lyric (named from the lyre), these musical, briefer, verses have come to be what most people think of when they hear the word “poem.” Though by nature these little collections of words belong to all people, for various reasons many consider them formidable and forbidding. This seminar aims to allow participants to become deeply acquainted with some great and lovely lyric poems, as we traverse the centuries by means of these vehicles of truth and beauty.
Online seminars in this series will take place on Wednesday evenings, 5:30-7:30PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent the selection of readings. Sessions will be facilitated by Elizabeth Reyes. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered 3 CEU credits for participating. This eleven-week series is $650. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $50 through a refund. Payment options are available.
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Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Thursday Evenings - February 6 - July 3, 2025
Regarded by many as one of the greatest novels ever written, War and Peace was published in 1869 and set during the Napoleonic Wars. Like other works often thrown into this category, War and Peace is hardly conventional, and is not even easy to categorize. Tolstoy himself points out that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence he hesitated to classify the book solely as a novel, a poem, or a historical chronicle… and we shall take his lead in this series. The author worked from extensive source material, including interviews, original documents from the war three generations before, history books (revered and criticized), and other historical novels. Tolstoy also drew from his own experience from the Crimean War.
In 1876 Dostoevsky wrote: "My strong conviction is that a writer of fiction has to have most profound knowledge—not only of the poetic side of his art, but also the reality he deals with, in its historical as well as contemporary context. Here [in Russia], as far as I see it, only one writer excels in this, Count Lev Tolstoy. Isaac Babel said, after reading War and Peace, "If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."
Online seminars in this series will take place on Thursday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be mailed the text. Sessions will be facilitated by Roxana Zirakzadeh and Andy Gilman. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered 3 CEU credits for participating. This twenty-two-week series is $800. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $100 through a refund. Payment options are available.
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Free Community Series
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
Modern Heroine Autobiographies
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
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The genre of autobiography necessarily invokes difficulties of subjectivity, omission, and distortion. At the same time, what one chooses to write about oneself can also be highly illuminating. Nowhere will this tension, and treasure, better reveal itself than in the autobiography of the modern heroine. In addition to the fruitful knowledge any reader would gain from a male writer of historic note, the modern heroine is also a witness, and an inspiration, of the dramatic evolution of technology, equality, and gender politics of the 20th century. We invite you to join this onsite series, reading autobiographies about one month apart.
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March 25 Reading:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Chapters 17 to end
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Readings in the Series:
The Story of my Life by Helen Keller
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Art and Writing of Georgia O'Keeffe
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - ISBN 978-0345514400
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir - ISBN 978-0060825195
The Fun of It by Amelia Earhart - ISBN 978-0915864553
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt - ISBN 978-0062355911
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Schedule:
12:00-1:30PM PDT
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
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Location:
111 East Ojai Avenue
Ojai, California 93023
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
Eastern Classics
The First and Third Tuesdays of each month
Next Session is April 1, 2025
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Like the west, the east has its own tradition of influential texts that address the perennial questions of human kind. Centering around the bodies of work from China, Japan, and India, this series will focus on the texts of Taoism, Confucius, Buddhism, and Hinduism. We invite you to join us and attendees can feel free to join intermittently.
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The April 1 reading is:
The Tao Te Ching - Chapter Twenty-Nine
Click icon to download, or click here
for all chapters.
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Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT
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Location:
111 East Ojai Avenue
Ojai, California 93023
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
The Poetry of Mary Oliver
The Second Tuesday of each month
Next Session is April 8, 2025
Mary Oliver's poetry is widely recognized for its deep connection to the natural world, often focusing on detailed observations of plants, animals, and landscapes, with a central theme of finding beauty and meaning in everyday moments, while exploring human experiences like mortality, loss, and the interconnectedness of all living things, all presented through vivid imagery and a conversational tone. We invite you to join us once per month to explore her poetry together.
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The April 8 poem is:
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Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT
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Location:
111 East Ojai Avenue
Ojai, California 93023
Upcoming Regular Events
Online Seminar Series
The Laws by Plato
Saturday, March 29, 2025
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“...there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing.”
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The Laws (Greek: ΝÏŒμοι, Nómoi; Latin: De Legibus) is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The conversation depicted in the work's twelve books begins with the question of who is given the credit for establishing a civilization's laws. Its musings on the ethics of government and law have established it as a classic of political philosophy alongside Plato's more widely read Republic. Scholars agree that Plato wrote this dialogue as an older person, having failed in his effort to guide the rule of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, instead having been thrown in prison. These events are alluded to in the Seventh Letter. The text is noteworthy as Plato's only undisputed dialogue not to feature Socrates. We invite you to join us as we read this often overlooked text, one section at a time, in monthly online events.
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March 29 Reading:
The Laws by Plato
Book 9 - Section 16 - Capital Offenses, Section 17 - The Theory of Punishment, Section 18, Homicide Law
(pages 310-349, 853a-874d)
Penguin Classics (June 2005)
ASIN B01FIXK9JK
ISBN 9780140449846
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
David Appleby
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
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Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear.
Having done the longest day in literature with Ulysses (1922), Joyce set himself an even greater challenge for his next book - the night. "A nocturnal state... That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." Published in 1939, the book would take Joyce two decades to complete.
A story with no real beginning or end, the work has come to assume a preeminent place in English literature. Anthony Burgess has lauded Finnegans Wake as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page". Harold Bloom has called it Joyce's masterpiece, and, in The Western Canon (1994), wrote that "if aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon, Finnegans Wake would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante".
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Join us as we read this text a few pages at a time, every other Wednesday afternoon. Click here to visit the Finnegans Wake Online Seminar page, with links to media and the Discussion Forum.
April 2 ​Reading:
Book Two - Chapter Three of Finnegans Wake by Joyce (page 343, Line 13), Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (December 1999). ISBN 9780141181264. Also, Chapter Eleven of A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake by William Tindall. Syracuse University Press; Reprint edition (May 1996), ISBN 0815603851
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Schedule:
12:30-2:00PM PDT
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Tutor:
Barry Rabe
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
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Online Seminar Series
Shakespeare in Britain and Greece: Comic, Tragic, Both
Saturday, April 5, 2025
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In the geography of his poetic imagination, Shakespeare seems to find world enough in time -- a stage in every age -- from the worlds of mythical Greece and the mother of epic, the Trojan War (The Two Noble Kinsmen and Troilus and Cressida) to Britain before Merlin (King Lear) to the “pale fire” of Roman Greece (Timon of Athens) to the warped world of pagan Roman Britain (Cymbeline) to the zany (and not-so-) world of Mediterranean sea change (The Comedy of Errors and Pericles) to the “fog and filthy air” of medieval Scotland (Macbeth) to a world of Elizabethan goodwives that somehow includes Falstaff (The Merry Wives of Windsor). In these plays, the poet’s constant themes are love, betrayal, identity, disguise, given in about as many combinations and permutations as one could wish, romantic, comic, tragic, and blends thereof.
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April 5 Reading:
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Pelican, Arden, or any standard edition with act, scene, and line numbers will work well
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutors:
Eric Stull and Jordan Hoffman
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Transcendentalism
Monday, April 7, 2025
"Humankind is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature."
Transcendentalism was a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the early 19th century in the northeastern United States. Deep beliefs in the goodness of nature, and of humanity as a part of that nature, were central expressions of the movement’s thinkers and writers. Self reliance, individualism, and divine encounter with everyday experience also characterized the transcendental spirit. A strong feature of American societal development, the approach generally embraced intuition over empiricism, and was cautious of progress that insulated the individual from dynamic, authentic experience. We invite you to join us for monthly Monday evening sessions (generally taking place the first Monday evening of each month), exploring the early, middle, and late thinking of the approach. Attendees need not participate in all of the sessions to benefit, as each reading will stand on its own. Authors in the series will include:
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Jonathan Edwards
William Ellery Channing
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
Margaret Fuller
Emily Dickinson
Frederick Douglas
Nathanial Hawthorne
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April 7 Reading:
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
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Schedule:
5:30-7:00PM PDT
Tutors:
Roxana Zirakzadeh and Andy Gilman
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Contemporary Issues Seminar Series
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Saturday, April 12, 2025
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“Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds.”
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Published in 1962 and named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of Discover magazine, Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book documents the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT. Carson accuses the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly. The book was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but it swayed public opinion and led to a reversal in U.S. pesticide policy, a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and an environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Join us as we read and discuss this foundational book, several chapters at a time, over monthly online seminars.
April 12 Reading:
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
13. Through a Narrow Window, 14. one in Every Four, 15. Nature Fights Back
(pages 199-261)
Mariner Books Classics; Anniversary edition (February 2022)
ISBN 978-0618249060
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Thursday, April 17, 2025
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What can we say we know with certainty? What does it mean to say that we know something? How does knowledge differ from belief? Can an exploration of basic philosophical questions, such as How do we know what we know? and What are the limits of our understanding? inform our thinking not just on intellectual issues, but on broader cultural challenges as well?
David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical skepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume rejected the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places his thinking with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley. Over five Thursday afternoon online seminars the series will cover:
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March 6: pages 1-25 (Sections 1 to 4)
March 20: pages 25-53 (Sections 5 to 7)
April 3: No seminar
April 17: pages 53-72 (Sections 8 and 9)
May 1: pages 72-102 (Sections 10 and 11)
May 15: pages 102-138 (Section 12, A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh, and An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature)
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Join us as we discuss this foundational work from Hume. This series continues a broader series on epistemology. All are welcome. Please join us even if this will be your first seminar in the series.
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Click here to visit the Epistemology Page.
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April 17 Reading:
pages 53-72 (Sections 8 and 9)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Hackett edition ( November 1993)
ISBN-13: 978-0872202290
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Schedule:
Thursdays, 12:30-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Carol Seferi
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Free Community Seminar Series
Lincoln’s Words, America’s Principles
Saturday, April 26, 2025
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The Agora Foundation invites you to an enriching six-part seminar series exploring the enduring wisdom of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speeches. Through a careful study of the Lyceum Address, Temperance Address, House Divided Speech, Cooper Union Address, First Inaugural, Gettysburg Address, and Second Inaugural, we will examine how Lincoln’s words continue to illuminate the challenges of political leadership in a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
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Each seminar will engage participants in a thoughtful discussion on how Lincoln grappled with the moral and constitutional crises of his time, offering profound insights into the responsibilities of leaders and citizens alike. From his warnings about the dangers of lawlessness and ambition to his appeals for national unity and reconciliation, Lincoln’s speeches serve as a timeless guide for navigating political and social divisions with wisdom, integrity, and a deep respect for America’s founding principles.
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This series is designed for those who seek a deeper understanding of how great leadership is shaped by a regard for principle, prudence, and a commitment to the common good. Whether you are a student of history, a civic leader, or simply an engaged citizen, these discussions will provide valuable perspectives on the challenges of leadership in our own time.
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Join us as we rediscover Lincoln’s vision for America and explore how his words continue to inspire and challenge us today.
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Series Dates:
Saturday, April 26
Saturday, May 17
Saturday, June 21
Saturday, August 16
Saturday, September 20
Saturday, October 18
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April 26 Reading:
​Lyceum and Temperance Addresses
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Karl Haigler
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Mind and Matter by Erwin Schrödinger
Saturday, May 10, 2025
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"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one."
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Mind and Matter, a work following What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell is a 1956 book written for the lay science reader by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The book is based on a course of lectures delivered by Schrödinger in Trinity College, which focused on one important question: "What kind of material process is directly associated with consciousness?" We invite you to join this monthly online series as we read this short but difficult book, one chapter at a time.
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May 10 Reading:
Mind and Matter by Schrödinger - Chapter 1 - The Physical Basis of Consciousness
Entire book: Cambridge University Press;
(March 26, 2012)
ISBN 978-1107604667
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
American Rhetoric: the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Saturday, May 31, 2025​
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There has never been anything like them, before or since. It is not the least part of the Lincoln-Douglas debates’ uniqueness that the texts of the debates were formed from what was a new phenomenon at the time, namely newspaper transcripts of entire speeches. In brackets within the texts of the two men’s speeches appear notes of crowd response or quotes of crowd members’ comments. There were no moderators, no restrictions on what was to be discussed, no buzzers, no mute buttons. Although there were no constraints on the subjects to be taken up, and although many matters arose in the course of the debates, the only subject really under consideration was slavery, which as Lincoln said, was the only problem which ever threatened the very existence of the United States.
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In one of the greatest examples of the exercise of free speech in all our history, the burning issue at stake was freedom itself, and whether it could prevail against its hideous opposite, its negation. The initial speaker spoke for an hour; the other replied for an hour and a half; the first spoke again, in rejoinder, for half an hour. The first debate was held in the heat of late summer, the last in the chill of autumn, a few weeks before the election. Some of the debates were rather sparsely attended; others drew thousands. We invite you to join us as we read and discuss all eight debates, roughly one month apart.
May 31 Reading:
Jonesboro Debate (September 15, 1858) - pages 83-126
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition
University of Illinois Press; First Edition (July 2014)
ISBN-13 : 978-0252079924
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Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Eric Stull
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Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.