The Helios Fellowship
Initiating Generative Masculinity
Connected by Nature
The Mission
The Helios Fellowship is a transgenerational peer mentoring network for men and boys aged 11 and over — community-rooted and skills-based, we work at depth to foster lasting connection and support bold, inspired lives.
Our approach is grounded in personal responsibility, mutuality, and reverence for life and the natural world.

Our mission is to initiate generative masculinity within the very real, down-to-earth, day-to-day lives of men — and the boys who need their guidance, their example and their blessing.

There is one thing that boys need in their lives more than anything else — the consistent, stabilising presence of psychologically and emotionally mature adult males. Beyond that, they need to be challenged and valued in equal measure.

Instead, what contemporary society offers them is a dissociative, superficial mode of living — a model of masculinity that is socially and culturally regressive. It’s important to say: toxic masculinity is real — though not an evil force but a symptom of the deep, chronic passivity, the wholesale psycho-spiritual collapse in the face of their own lives and the demands of the society around them.

The Helios Fellowship exists to address this cultural collapse — empowering men and boys to clarify and define for themselves where they are in their lives, make authentic choices, and live into fulfilling futures alongside each other.

The Structure

The Helios Fellowship is woven together by way of four strands — four complementary spaces that serve our personal, community and cultural intentions.

The primary strands are Fire in the King’s Cup (biennial) and The Deep Nature Immersion (annual) — professionally facilitated offerings working at depth, developed over 30 years.

The primary entry point is Fire in the King’s Cup — a structured six-day experiential educational programme, also the best possible preparation for The Deep Nature Immersion.

The Deep Nature Immersion is a serious initiatory undertaking spanning thirteen full days, including a four-day and night fast in solitude, in nature. It is best approached with skilful, steady preparation and commitment.

The two secondary strands are where The Helios Fellowship begins to have a serious positive impact; men gather from Fire in the King’s Cup and The Deep Nature Immersion in two formal yet self-organised spaces.

The Three Man Clan emerges from within Fire in the King’s Cup, forming the more intimate peer mentoring initiative where three men gather to share and support each other over time.

The Men’s Community Council is a larger gathering, initiated when a number of local Clans come together with the intention to create and hold a secure, skilled and safeguarded space into which boys age 11+ can then be invited in time.

Core initiative

Fire in the King’s Cup

The core six-day educational programme — from myth to meaning.
Core initiative

The Deep Nature Immersion

A thirteen-day initiatory rite of passage in the wilderness.
Rooted in community

The Three Man Clan

Peer mentoring in threes, chosen by the men themselves — for years, not weeks.
Rooted in community

Men’s Community Council

The wider community and networks the men build by their own intention.
A non-residential programme
Forthcoming · 2026
I · The Offering

Fire in the
King’s Cup

From Myth to Meaning

This six day programme, developed over 30 years, is for men age 25 and over and serves several intentions… it is the primary entry point to The Helios Fellowship, and carries the core educational aspects of our embodied and relational approach to this work — the work of initiating a generative masculine culture.

It is for men who are committed to their ongoing healing, development and growth — who wish to initiate and cultivate authentic depth and presence in their lives, and extend that into the world, each in their own way.

It can be attended as a stand alone course, though it will be of particular interest to those who already participate in a men’s group, and would like to deepen their skills, experience and enhance their impact.

Beyond serving these personal and cultural intentions, Fire in the King’s Cup offers those working in youth support, development and education, or who are otherwise involved addressing deep structure systemic issues posed by the endemic crisis of masculinity, a serious curriculum that will facilitate the depth insight and understanding necessary to shape coherent, impactful policy and strategy.

Duration
Six days — non-residential
Eligibility
Men, 25 +
Intention
Depth · Presence · Stewardship
Book now → See the full programme →
A peer mentoring initiative
Ongoing · for alumni
II · The Three Man Clan

The Three Man Clan

This is the integral companion peer-mentoring practice designed to incorporate and extend the learnings of Fire in the King’s Cup into real life. Men are invited to select two others with whom he wishes to connect and share with over time — potentially many years — arranging among themselves to meet for one and a half to two hours fortnightly, at minimum.

Form
Three men — by choice
Rhythm
90 – 120 min weekly / fortnightly
Horizon
Years, not weeks
A rite of passage
13 days · wilderness
III · The Core Intention

Deep Nature
Immersion

Beyond Fire in the King’s Cup and the Three Man Clan, the core intention of the Helios Fellowship is to offer a powerful, authentic and legitimate initiatory rite of passage for men and boys. A thirteen day immersion, at the heart of which lie an ordeal - four days of fasting in solitude, in the wilderness — with water and only basic shelter, but without food or distraction. 

Duration
Thirteen days — wilderness
Threshold
Four days solo · fasting
For
Men & boys
Book now →
A gathering in community
Monthly · Quarterly
IV · The Wider Circle

Men’s Community Council

Alongside these offerings, men gather in their own locality — preferably around a fire, preferably fortnightly — to come together as a whole community; men, boys and elders, to listen, and be heard, to play and  celebrate, to witness, bless and learn.  This is a closed circle - confidential, safeguarded, secure. However, from time to time it may be opened to men and boys curious to join.  This also provides the setting in to which Helios Fellowship facilitators may be invited periodically, both to learn from innovation and offer ongoing education and skill building within the life of the community itself.

Rhythm
Monthly / quarterly
Setting
Local community
Carried by
Facilitators · alumni · allies
V · A Letter

On a personal, political and planetary scale, the world is crying out for generative masculinity. The serious and systemic consequences we encounter in the absence of this hard‑won, deep, embodied and relational consciousness are not just evident — they are writ large across our lives, impacting each of us daily.

Endemic violence, addiction, passivity, fragmentation, polarisation, isolation, greed, corruption, denial, the wholesale pathological exploitation of the earth: a litany of issues that constellate to enable and collude with the catastrophic loss of biodiversity fuel a meta‑crisis that is rapidly foreclosing the possibility of a liveable, thriving planet — and laying waste to the evolutionary potentials of nature, including, of course, humanity.

It seems increasingly clear that our inadequate, inappropriate and superficial attempts to comprehend, let alone counter, the regressive forces assailing our precious world have revealed a deeper truth: we lack the enduring depth, integrity, presence and vitality to steward and steer our relationships, our communities, neighbourhoods and public institutions with any sense of genuine hope.

I humbly suggest: not only can we do better — we must. I believe it is within the gift of each man; a perhaps remote yet essential expression of our deep nature, to meet this moment, in service to life itself.

Whether these deeper currents are already familiar to you, or this is the beginning of a search you haven’t yet named — if you feel a sincere desire to lean in, learn and play your part, whatever that looks, please read on. 

— Paul J Howell
Founder · The Helios Fellowship
VI · About Paul

Seek Not the way of the ancients, seek what the ancients sought. Basho

Founder · The Helios Fellowship
Paul J Howell, black and white portrait, looking out across a coastal landscape at dusk
Paul J Howell Founder

Paul has spent more than two decades in the company of men who have come looking for something they could not yet name.    He has been shaped by a long apprenticeship to the practitioners of applied and depth psychology, somatic inquiry, and the older traditions of rite‑of‑passage — and by the steady, unglamorous task of initiating circle's of men to ask what they want from themselves and the world, and what in turn the world actually needs from them.

He believes that the deeper currents of generative masculinity are not the property of any one tradition, but a birthright held in trust by those willing to do the work, not just of recovering them, but living them in the world we now inhabit.  The Helios Fellowship stewards a generative space where men can learn, share and inspire each other to forge their own expression of this work - and shapeit according to the needs of a small, careful container ready for those men ready sincere and ready to lean in.

He lives in Scotland, works globally and seeks close council with wilder lands wherever he travels. 

Lineage
WildMind Deep Ecopsychology · council practice.
Practice
Est' 1997
Home
The British Isles
VII · The Mission

Whatever material benefits we have achieved, they have come at a serious cost.

For several hundred years, the vast majority of humanity has been fiercely pursuing the production and accumulation of material wealth — and many have benefited from the undeniable comforts and conveniences this affords.

However, anyone with even one eye half open will know that this pursuit has not been without significant cost. While we have become enthralled by efficiency, utility and individualism, we have, in many ways, also become impoverished — and consequentially, so has the planet we depend upon.

In the context of The Helios Fellowship, we suggest that whatever material benefits we have achieved, they have come at a serious cost. We have neglected the inner capacities — the intra, inter and transpersonal insight, depth and relational skills necessary to steward boys toward the full realisation of their mature masculine potentials.

It is precisely these depth capacities that support men to learn, extend into uncertainty, and to hold themselves and each other as they move beyond the superficial, performative lives that much of society demands — and which instead make genuine stewardship of self, community and earth not just possible, but a natural consequence of a connected, fulfilling life.

This is the long game. Its truest measure is not the men in the room but the generation beyond them: that each man, having done his own work, becomes a mentor the teenage boys around him actually need — present, generative, and willing to stand alongside them.

THE MISSION OF THE HELIOS FELLOWSHIP IS TO INITIATE GENERATIVE MASCULINITY WITHIN THE VERY REAL, DOWN-TO-EARTH, DAY TO DAY LIVES OF MEN, AND THE BOYS WHO NEED THEIR GUIDANCE, THEIR EXAMPLE AND THEIR BLESSING.  
VIII · An Invitation

The world is made of atoms, created by stories, and defined by action.

Enquiries are welcomed from anyone with an interest in supporting boys, but specifically those with personal / professional experience of supporting teenage boys and young adult males in any context e.g. mentoring, educating, coaching, social work, justice, policy.

Make an enquiry → Read the letter again
IX · Field Notes

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