New Bay Area Cooperation Circle Aims to Heal and Unite the Human Family

"Earth is home. Humans are family." -Think Round Inc.'s Code of Ethics

We are excited to welcome a new Cooperation Circle, Think Round Inc, to our URI North America family!

• Contact Person: Heidi Hardin, Founder, [email protected]

• Mission: "To demonstrate life's fullest potential through the arts and sciences, especially where environmental concerns meet neighborhoods and families."

• Areas of Focus: Arts, Education, Environment, Youth, Interfaith Understanding, Trauma Healing

• Website: http://www.thinkround.org/

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An art gallery in San Francisco, adorned with paintings of families of different ethnicities and religions, creates an experience where those who enter are welcomed to reflect on the centrality of family in all cultures. Those who venture into the gallery discover this space is more than a building full of beautiful paintings, but rather an experience where the motivation lies in manifesting heaven on earth.

“We believe that we’re at a turning point in human evolution where we can actually decide to consciously manifest heaven on earth now,” said artist Heidi Hardin, founder of one of the newest URI Cooperation Circles called Think Round Inc. “We don’t have to wait ‘til we die. We are living longer and longer, so why live in all this stress and conflict when we can be the initiators of our own healing, and the creators of our own heaven on earth?”

Probed to describe what heaven on earth looks like, Hardin said it is, “where people live in a love model rather than a fear model. The fear model is competition and lack. And the love model is abundance and cooperation.”   

This is Think Round Inc (TRI).

More than 16 years ago, this framework inspired an initiative to unite the seven major world religions through “The Paradise Project”. The Paradise Project emphasizes the families of Abraham, looking at the similarities between Christians, Jews, and Muslims through multimedia art installations. According to TRI’s website, “Each successive installation focuses on a single religion, presenting 78 freestanding portraits, along with touching objects, environmental displays, and an original soundtrack by Hardin’s longtime collaborator and fellow UCSD alumnus, Los Angeles composer, Jonathan Sacks.”

Think Round Inc. makes healing a priority of their organization since its genesis came from Hardin’s own journey to heal from the brokenness of her childhood. One way in which they do this is by a non-medical, peer-to-peer program titled Turning the Tide of Trauma, which they offer freely to the community. Turning the Tide of Trauma focuses on reversing adverse childhood experiences by ending the marginalization of trauma as well as the suppression of women and children by male-dominated world religions, emphasizing home and family as both cause and cure.

Hardin stated, “Every time a parent comes to a new awareness and a new plateau about their own upbringing, they will open the doors to the kind of life they want for their own children. It comes back down to not having children operate because they’re fearful or because there is not enough, but because they are loved and there is abundance.” For Hardin, this is the embodiment of paradise.

Throughout the year, TRI also offers panel discussions, school tours, guided meditations, Human Family Suppers, and family art-making classes.

"Having the opportunity to join URI as a Cooperation Circle feels like finding our Mothership," Hardin said to TRI's board of directors about their desire to join URI, expand their reach, and connect with other Cooperation Circles doing similar work. TRI would love help from any Cooperation Circles who are also passionate in uniting the families of Abraham. They are continually looking for installation venues in San Francisco, guest speakers, and panelists.

In the future, TRI hopes to complete “The Paradise Project” and display it fully in The Center for the Human Family. The Center for the Human Family will be a destination where families will walk through a labyrinth of seven “houses” representing the stories of families from each of the major world religions who now reside in the Bay Area. As visitors walk through exhibits of the backyards of various families, Heidi hopes they will experience the universal shared backyard of our planet.

Along with celebrating one human family, the center will include floors for trauma healing modalities, studies of human evolution, environmental sustainability, and the end of suppression at the hands of religion. At the heart of the center is a desire to move out of what has been in order to venture forward with wisdom and love as a foundation for the future.

Visitor Information

The installation now on display in Think Round Inc.’s current gallery is titled: Families in Paradise (The Four Jews) Part II of The Human Family Tree/A Walk Through Paradise...seven installations. This timely exhibit, consisting of 78 paintings of 4 Jewish families, is free and open to the public until the end of December.

Think Round Fine Arts

2140 Bush Street, Suite 1B, San Francisco CA 94115

(between Fillmore and Webster. Gallery entrance is on the driveway.)

October 1 - December 29, 2018

Gallery Hours: 9AM-12PM Tuesdays / Thursdays + by appointment

Reception: Saturday, October 6, 2018 from 4-8PM

Artists' Talks: 6PM

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Welcome Think Round Inc! We at URI are looking forward to all that we’ll build together in creating that future of heaven on earth!