John Wiley
Our dear friend and local luminary Ellen Downing passed in her sleep Monday 6/9/25. She enriched countless lives in the Santa Barbara region with her work at SBCC, most notably in creating and managing SBCC’s “Mind & Supermind: Expanding the Limits of Consciousness” (aka MSM) series.
Atop that renowned MSM free lecture series, she gently and skillfully shepherded a number of other esteemed SBCC programs. My personal favorite is SBCC’s fabulous Psychology program in which she artfully mixed well known international speakers and world class local professors, with personal and community building classes.
As a friend and community leader, her kind and gentle nature coupled with a quick wit and quiet genius made it a stimulating delight to be in her gracious presence. I hope other readers may share memories of her in comments here, as we mourn together the loss of a precious soul in our world.
Ellen’s obituary can be read here.
Finding better photos, and I think there’s a memorial page in the works where we can all share some. I’ll update with a link if/when it’s confirmed.
The official obit is online now at this page. I’m hoping to add memories and more photos there too.
I’m sad to say the obit site’s “privacy” statement goes well beyond my comfort level. 🙁
It required far more info than I want shared with Google, Amazon and the innumerable others who want to share and sell it. I’m going to post stuff on my own site instead where it’s already being scraped no doubt, will share a link here, and suggest you read the full obit site’s Terms of Service & “Privacy” policy.
To clarify, it’s safe to read on the obit site if you select “Do Not Share…” in the popup or the settings at the bottom of the screen. My comment about privacy pertains to the extensive personal info required to post there.
Thank you, John, for posting and celebrating the amazing Ellen. I had so many magical breakfasts/events/courses along with Ellen. She was the best of the best.
Agreed! Such a joy to spend time with. She and Doris Green would join us at the Pelli or Beachside for any excuse or none at all. Such wonderful memories. Laughter, deep closeness, psychological topics, spiritual depth… Best Years Of Our Lives.
Ellen was a sweet and intelligent person who did so much for the SB community through her work at SBCC Adult Education. Her kindness will always be remembered.
Thank you for posting this, John.
Mind and Supermind enriched many seniors. Unfortunately, by the time you age into wisdom (maybe), it’s difficult to share it with others and educational opportunities for you to to continue to learn become fewer.
There’s a great 5.3 minute video interview of her at this YouTube page.
Looks like I messed up the link code. Too long since hand coding. :}
The uTube vid is at this address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0GDl4RIak
Just copy/paste the link. I’ll try the link again without the Bold text below:
Ellen uTube Vid