United Diversity

My name is Misha Bailey.  I just recently finished my formal education at UC Berkeley in May 2007, where I used my undergraduate degree to explore many disciplines: soil science, agroecology, general ecology, international rural development policy, collaborative decision making, indigenous community issues, modern dance, organic gardening…My interests in life so far have tended to be in an umbrella shape – most things related to the larger culture creating and re-membering ways of being in harmony with the natural world and other human beings have always been profoundly important and interesting to me. 

More recently I completed two important milestones.  The first was a permaculture design course with the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, which happened in May 2008.  And the second was a lengthy ethnographic research project I undertook (partially related to my undergraduate degree) and finished in April, 2008, entitled ‘Missing the Regenerative Pieces? A Comparison of Land Management Systems in California’s NorthCoast Forests.’  This project led me to explore the forestry management strategies/approaches/paradigms of an industrial logging company, traditional Native American forest tending practices, and two current tribal forestry programs in Northern CA.  Ultimately this paper compares these three groups by looking at the ways their forestry strategies treat and potentially affect two significant cultural-use plants for Native Americans in northern CA (blue willow and hazel), and then each groups’ implications for overall forest health and regenerative capacities.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like more information on this.

Currently, I am in an exploratory and transition phase… I want to learn more about herbal medicine, natural building, California fire ecology and ways of restoring CA’s traditional fire cycles, to name just the tip of the iceberg.  Right now I am also spending a lot of time in my inner landscape, inward healing journey, spiritual process.  Zone 0 permaculture, as some people have said.  I am immensely grateful to the Sae Taw Win II Burmese Buddhist school in Graton, CA, and also the book Women Who Run With the Wolves, for aiding this part of the journey. In the near future I look forward to sinking my teeth more deeply into one or some of my interests, while right now I am looking down the potential pathways for me explore.