Hey, I'm Maya
I AM...
An Artist
= I strive to express my internal self in the material world
A Farmer
= I cultivate life in partnership with land
An Ecologist
= I study living beings and how they interact with their environment
A Researcher
= I find and information and turn it into stories
A Holobiont =
I am a living system made up of multiple species collaborating to live and grow.
I have been a compulsive creative since I was a teenager and since then have been drawing, painting, carving, decorating clothes, making jewelry, writing, body painting, and making art out of any other materials I come across. If I am near a blank surface, it won't be blank for long. I use art as a cathartic form of expression and self-reflection, but also value art for communication and see art, media and storytelling as indispensable tools for environmental and food justice.
I grew up in a suburb, but fell in love with farming by accident and haven't turned back. Farming is probably my favorite way of channeling my food sovereignty obsession. It is delicious, joyful, exhausting, and teaches me how to be a part of an ecosystem. I have been farming for 5 years, and have been a farm manager for 1.
I am a naturalist, learning about the living world around me through research and observation. I am a strong critic of institutional science, but I will always bring an ecologist's lens to farming and other work. This means focusing on interaction rather than isolated individuals, designing effective environments, thinking in systems, and harnessing symbiosis.
I have yet to abandon my inner 5-year-old and am constantly asking "why." I know that no questions are neutral, and do research on questions that are asked for by environmental and social justice movements. I also have a knack for tacking a lot of messy information and turning it into simple diagrams.
All the above identities are optional, but this one isn't. All humans are holobionts, so what is more relevant is that I think of myself as a holobiont, as one rung in a nested hierarchy of life. I understand my mind and body as systems of many pieces collaborating and communicating across time and space. I do my best to care for all the pieces of that system by paying close attention to communication within my mind and/or body. Just as I am a cooperative entity, I recognize that I am also part of cooperative entities including human communities and multi-species ecosystems.