Happy Equinox to you, dear reader. The Institute of Relational Being (IRB) is honored and delighted to be bringing forth an alternative, emergent fellowship journey. To begin, 8 beings of the human variety will be embarking on this slightly wild and unknown adventure together. They will do so while navigating and integrating their more-than-human and multispecies companions into the flow of this shared journey as well. This pathway will be a process of emergence, aligned closely with the principles of relationality, ecological awareness, and holistic well-being.
Here's a brief overview of how the IRB Fellowship journey is distinguishing itself from more traditional fellowships:
Holistic Well-Being: The IRB Fellowship emphasizes holistic well-being, recognizing that personal rhythms, cycles, and ecological context are all intertwined with self-care as individuals, while also embracing that we are engaging in a shared journey with its own energy and processes. The individual, the group, and our multi-species ecological communities are all essential aspects of a fellow's journey. It encourages fellows to embrace a co-becoming along with their own well-being as they engage in relational practices.
Multispecies Awareness: Unlike traditional fellowships that primarily focus on human-centric endeavors, the IRB Fellowship has an integrally important process of enhancing our multispecies awareness. Fellows are encouraged to explore their relationships with the rest of nature, and the cosmos beyond, as a participatory process of ecological, and cosmic engagement and entanglement.
Fluid Duration: While the IRB Fellowship will establish a traditional structure for starting and completing a fellowship, it will also lean into and remain open to a flexible approach to duration. IRB recognizes that relational learning and transformation may not fit within rigid timelines. Therefore, fellowships can, and likely will extend beyond traditional timeframes, allowing for deeper, more nuanced experiences.
Mutual Support: The IRB Fellowship promotes mutual support among fellows, fostering a sense of kinship and shared purpose. Fellows are welcomed into a role of giving and receiving, being able to provide encouragement and accountability to one another in both personal and professional endeavors. This process will be similar to a mycorrhizal network with alternating fruiting fungal bodies. Where all fellows are in supportive relationships with each other throughout, while also having a certain duration where the energy and focus is directed to each fellow individually (the fruiting body).Â
Relationship-Centric Outcomes: While traditional fellowships often emphasize tangible deliverables, the IRB Fellowship places a greater emphasis on the transformational outcomes of relational engagement. These outcomes may not always be quantifiable but are no less valuable. And these outcomes might manifest through personal healing or grief tending for instance, or as artistic expressions that are not meant to be publicly shared.
Eco-Cosmic Perspectives: The IRB Fellowship integrates an eco-cosmic perspective, recognizing the interconnectedness of all beings as part of a living planet. This encourages fellows to explore how they can contribute to regenerative practices within the ecosystem they are a part of. This is done in part while practicing processes of attuning to the cycles of the seasons, the lunar cycles, and importantly, the cycles of their own bodies.Â
Inclusive Networks: Rather than limited networking opportunities, the IRB Fellowship encourages fellows to form inclusive networks that extend beyond their immediate fields. These networks may encompass diverse perspectives, cultures, and expertise. This is an invitation and encouragement but by no means is this a mandatory part of a fellows process. It is however an invitation to feel a sense of leadership with which you can welcome folks in to participate with you in your journey.Â
Personal Relational Transformation: Personal transformation and our relationship with a broader context of self-awareness (as part of living systems and multispecies ecological relationships) are central to the IRB Fellowship journey. Fellows are invited to explore their own relational identities and how these identities shape their interactions with the rest of the living world we are part of.
The Institute of Relational Being Fellowship is a living and emerging process and inquiry. The goal is for fellows to feel empowered and supported, so they may be vulnerable and open to navigating the complexities of our interconnected world with greater awareness, respect, reverence, and compassion.
We at IRB are grateful for this first group of fellows who are embarking together on an ever-changing journey exploring and wandering through being and becoming more of a relational being. The invitation throughout will be for them to be willing to come with humility, vulnerability, and a good dose of ‘not knowing’ as we consider and play with practices, processes, and efforts that ideally can be of service to holistic and relational cultural/behavioral transformation.
IRB recognizes this is especially important for those of us humans born into the trappings of modernity, so that we can be of service in helping compost the dominant mythology, which is based in an anthropocentric, capatilistic, colonial worldview and life-way. To be a relational being is to begin from a holistic, eco-cosmic version of reality, and move outwards (and onwards) from there. So this will be a co-creative, co-becoming process and work in progress.
As relational beings, we aim to operate as a part of nature, not separate from it. We all have a lot to learn from the rest of nature. This fellowship is also a follow-ship, in that we will try our best to be humble and open enough to follow the wisdom and guidance the rest of our more-than-human and multispecies ecological companions have to share with us.
We appreciate the urgent need to navigate reality with awe, reverence, respect, and an understanding that we are but one part of an integrally interconnected, exquisite living world.
Please do stay tuned for more about this fellowship journey, we’ll be illuminating and celebrating the humans who are embarking on this soon.