After spending nearly two years serving as the naturalist at Holden Village—a Lutheran retreat center and community in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington—Nic Cadell sought out EcoFaith Recovery with a hope of working with faith-based communities engaged in ecological and cultural healing work.
Nic comes to EcoFaith with an in-depth and growing knowledge of ecology, queerness, decolonization, ancestral practices, and spirituality, and explores how these fields intersect and inform one another. In the past, Nic has also served as an educator as well as a trained facilitator in conflict resolution and restorative justice. Nic received their bachelor’s degree from Whitman College with a major in philosophy and a minor in critical queer theory. They now long to build community and collaborate with other people in the work of “re-imagining and re-stor(y)ing the world to come using knowledge and practices that have been kept alive or created by those in the margins.”During this internship, Nic hopes to further develop their gifts as a leader and facilitator who cultivates sacred, relational spaces that are grounded in both ecological knowledge and queer wisdom. Nic will meet weekly with EcoFaith’s Awakening Leadership cohort to engage in mutual mentoring with fellow leaders using EcoFaith’s seven Practices for Awakening Leadership. Nic will also engage in the practice of weekly one-to-one conversations and reflection while exploring ways to incorporate the seven Practices into a group liturgy for queer youth and/or adults interested in ecotheology or ecopraxis leadership development.