MEET THE GUIDES
Rob Miller
Rob is the lead guide and executive director of Cascadia Quest. He is a wilderness guide, ceremonialist, wildcrafter, council leader, loving parent, and fun-loving instigator of radical and sustainable earth-based culture change. He guides and teaches rites of passage, vision fasts, grief ceremonies, men’s work and other related growth activities, ancestral skills and more for Cascadia Quest and beyond. He has completed the School of Lost Borders wilderness guides training program, has studied grief work and ritual with Sobonfu Some of Burkina Faso, and most importantly incorporates his entire life experience including over 20 years as a professional artistic musician/composer and a further 20 as a wildcrafter into his work as a guide.
Praveen Mantena
A wilderness guide and leadership mentor, Praveen started his journey, like many others, as a young adult struggling to find his way in the world and feeling dissatisfied with the default options. During his own rite of passage, he discovered for the first time his calling into a deeper, more personally meaningful service to the world as a guide and mentor to others in a similar struggle. He is now committed to bridging the self-discovery practices and natural openings that happen in a wilderness rite of passage with the realities, challenges and opportunities of our more urban, fast-paced lives.
He originally received his training as a guide with the School of Lost Borders with whom he has co-guided over a hundred people in the winter, summer and fall vision quests. His other recent facilitation work includes the Mankind Project New Warrior Training Adventure and mentoring inner city male youth into adults with Boys to Men of Washington DC. Praveen has guided multiple programs with Cascadia Quest, including the Young Men’s Initiation and the Adult Men’s Vision Fast.
Kinde Nebeker
After a thirty-plus years’ profession in design and visual communication, Kinde began transitioning into wilderness rites of passage guiding in 2008. She started New Moon Rites of Passage in 2011, which offers wilderness rites of passage, ecopsychological daywalks, grief tending, one-on-one integral coaching, a monthly Tonglen practice and various programs. She has led fasts in the tradition of the School of Lost Borders in Northern Utah since 2014 and has guided with Veteran’s Rites.
Kinde holds a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology with an emphasis on Ecopsychology from Naropa University. She has been certified as an Integral Coach by New Ventures West in California. Kinde is currently co-executive director of the Wilderness Guides Council, a U.S. nonprofit membership network of global reach whose mission is to reintroduce meaningful earth-based rites of passage and related nature-based healing and educational programs into modern culture through its network of guides.
Kinde is committed to cultural renewal through the work of deepening and transforming our relationships to the natural world, to ourselves and to each other, creating the conditions for the awakening of consciousness that we must undergo to become a sustainable species on the planet. She guides the Women’s Vision Fast with Cascadia Quest.
Daniel Kirchhof
Daniel sits daily with some of the greatest teachers of listening—the creek, trees, and animals of the northwestern forest. This listening guides his work as a visionary storyteller, builder of beautiful life-sustaining structures, singer of sacred music, caretaker of duck flock and cabbage patch, ambassador for humans in the wild, and cheerful community builder. Daniel is a council leader, is skilled with hands-on ancestral and survival skills (like brain-tanning, buckskin, friction fire, etc), and runs archery camps for youth. He has served as a lead-instructor and rites of passage guide with Twin Eagles Wilderness School in ID, co-led the Young Adults Fast with the School of Lost Borders in CA, and guides vision fasts in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness of MT. From his home at Hawthorn Farm in Western WA, Daniel serves Life with a loving, open heart. He co-guides the Young Men’s Initiation and is an auxiliary guide for multiple Cascadia Quest trainings.
Hanna Scholz
Hanna has been involved with Cascadia Quest since 2015 as a participant, assistant, mentor for young women, and co-guide. With a passion for supporting the healthy evolution of humanity, she believes in the deep wisdom accessible when we are connected with self, each other and Nature in a whole circle. She is a sister, mentor, and business owner who shows up with all her life experience and varied gifts to share what is useful now. Hanna loves to dance, and is president and second generation owner of her family's local bicycle manufacturing business, Bike Friday. She leads councils, Day Quests, and co-guides the Young Women’s Rite of Passage and Grief Ceremonies for Cascadia Quest.
Nicole Medema
What is it like to be human? Nicole explores this question through her practice of poetry, spirituality, and theater, from her home in Eugene, Oregon. A longtime ritualist, Nicole first joined Cascadia Quest in 2018 and became steeped in the work that follows the lineage of The School of Lost Borders. As an animist, being out on the land in of itself is a religious experience that she enjoys sharing with others. Nicole’s style as a vision fast guide is informed by her other job as a professional clown, and vice versa. She aims to bring love, levity, and a mythic perspective to the guide chair. She holds a bachelor’s in Philosophy from Pomona College in Claremont, California and has completed various trainings with Cascadia Quest, including the year long guide training, The Four Seasons of Leadership. As a woman of Mexican heritage, she enjoys speaking Spanish and supporting Latinx people. She is the mother of a teen, an amateur wildlife tracker, and loves to break out in song whenever possible. She co-guides the Adult Vision Fast and Women’s Vision Fast for Cascadia Quest.
Susan Hough
Susan Hough has been living her gift for over 35 years. She began her journey on the East Coast working with teens and families. The rites of passage of losing her mother, being diagnosed with breast cancer, and suffering through a divorce caused Susan's entire life to shift. She rededicated herself to turn them into experiences which deepened her journey to heal herself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
For eighteen years, Susan was mentored by Sobonfu Somé in the practice of traditional African rituals. Through these rituals Susan expanded the role that spirit plays in her life, and vowed to share this wisdom; creating Living Your Gifts.
Susan is a CTI Life Coach, and has trained with Mietek Wierkus in energy healing, Mary Branch Grove in the healing arts and is is an ordained minister and the Board member of the Church of Gaiabriel. She has over 35 years’ experience in traditional mental health working with teens and their families. She is also an ordained minister. Susan is the Youth Coordinator and President for Wisdom Spring, Inc., with a fundraising program “Walking For Water,” which has placed over forty-five wells in isolated villages in indigenous communities throughout Africa and India. Susan is part of Cascadia Quest’s Four Seasons of Leadership training.
Debra Braun
Debra has been involved with Cascadia Quest since 2015 first as the parent of an initiated son, and soon after as a participant, assistant and co-guide. A lover of nature, she brings deep respect for all beings, compassionate listening, dedication to the universal power of transformation, and a warm, grounded, and curious demeanor to her work in the field. She is a mother, a business owner and a mentor with a life of rich experience to draw upon and share. She leads councils, Day Quests, and co-guides the Young Women’s Rite of Passage.
Booster Blake
Booster Blake is a men’s life coach and consultant with over 15 years of experience in helping others develop the skills needed to make life a wholehearted experience. Well versed in a broad range of modalities that leverage neurology and relationships, he is devoted to helping others discover the power of their own mythic journey. Fiercely anchored in heart-centered leadership, he brings authenticity, creativity, presence and play to inspire himself and others into living deeper, richer lives in service of building healthy communities. He is normally found hiking and camping in the Colorado wilderness with his friends and family (three sons) and his life partner Caite. For Cascadia Quest, he co-guides Tending Male Fire.
Ibrahim Sory Sylla
Ibrahim is a Griot from Conakry, Guinea, and has been playing music since his youth. He performed with Ballet Fareta for four years, traveling West Africa studying and performing. He returned to Guinea to work and tour Africa and Europe with Circus Boabob. He moved to the U.S. in 2009, and is currently a member of the performing company Denbaya Drum and Dance in Eugene, Oregon. He drums for our Grieving Ceremonies and our men’s retreat, Tending Male Fire.
Ron Pevny, M.A.
Ron Pevny is the founding director of the Center for Conscious Eldering in Colorado. Ron did his Master’s work in Integral Counseling and Psychotherapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies, learning therapeutic and growth practices from around the world. In 1980, he was one of the first to be certified as a Wilderness Rite of Passage Guide, and played a key role in the founding of the worldwide Wilderness Guides Council. He is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International and author of the book Conscious Living, Conscious Aging. For 20 years, he has conducted workshops across the country, including many at Ghost Ranch Retreat Center in New Mexico and at the IONS Earthrise Retreat Center. Ron brings to his work a wealth of experience, knowledge, processes and practices, but knows that ultimately it is the open heart that generates vision and healing. He leads Conscious Eldering programs for Cascadia Quest.
Morgan Haigh
Morgan is someone who exists in many different spaces as a multidisciplinary artist, community guide, nature appreciator, person in recovery, loving witness, and as completely herself. She is based in Portland, OR, and as a new facilitator, seeks to bridge the gap between the rich culture that cities provide with the timeless wisdom that the wilderness offers. Having struggled firsthand with the weight of generational trauma, addiction, the epidemic of isolation, and longing for something more, Morgan firmly believes in people’s ability to grow into who they are called to be, especially with community support. She has found great meaning in rites of passage as well as circling work. She is honored to show up and hold these spaces with the love and respect they deserve. She co-guides the Steens Mountain Hike.
Teri Lysak
Teri is passionate about helping people understand and connect with the natural world. She runs the nonprofit Cascadia Wild where she teaches classes in animal tracking, wild plant foraging, and wilderness survival. She runs the Wolverine Tracking Project, organizing volunteers to study rare carnivores on the Mt Hood National Forest. Teri holds an MS in Forest Science from Oregon State University and a BA in Biology from Grinnell College, and has a Level 3 Track and Sign Certification through Cybertracker, a professional tracking certification organization. When not working or out exploring the forest for tracks, she spends her time working on her tiny house and gardening. She is an adjunct teacher in the Four Seasons of Leadership training with Cascadia Quest.
Randy Morris
Randy Morris, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for 30 years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. He is also the President Emeritus of the Board at Rite of Passage Journeys, a non-profit dedicated to restoring rites of passage for youth, adults and elders, and where he led adult vision quests for many years. Randy is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International and serves on their executive committee. He continues to teach classes in Dreamwork, Ritual Process, Elderhood and Rites of Passage. In his spare time, Randy is a grandfather to four and likes to play pickleball, strum his guitar, and paddle his kayak in his beloved Salish Sea. He is part of the Conscious Eldering program for Cascadia Quest.
Tanor Hudson
Tanor has been immersed in the breadth of primitive living and survival skills for many moons. He uses these skills as part of daily life. He has lived many years on the ground and with the fire. Tanor is deeply inspired and motivated by his daily direct relationship with the elements and the beings who reside there. With Cascadia Quest, he is a teacher of friction fire for adults and teens.