Today we’d like to introduce you to Mayra Vazquez Radzinski.
Hi Mayra, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve always been a science-and-social-justice nerd. When I was a kid in the 80s, and most girls asked for Barbie dolls, I asked for a chemistry set. In high school, while others planned their dresses and dates for the dance, I organized beach cleanups and Earth Day events. In college, I studied journalism and marched for women’s rights. I felt called to use my voice for social good, but I was lost on how to turn that into a path.
Around that same time, I fell into modeling and acting. It was a fun way to travel and earn a living, an addictive combination for a young, adventurous spirit. Because of that detour, I didn’t find my way back to school again until my 40s, with two kids and a move back to Texas, where it all began.
Living on a few acres in Central Texas opened my eyes to true environmentalism and conscious living, grounded in a direct reliance on the rain, the soil, and my community. Determined to align my actions with my beliefs, I studied permaculture, which led me to earn a degree in Restoration Ecology and Sustainable Communities.
Along the way, I expanded into film production and received a grant from Oregon State University to make a documentary about climate change, focused on community-led resilience. To help others connect with the earth, I launched a sustainable landscape design business, but after 7 years, I felt deeply unfulfilled. I had a full and varied toolbox, but I was no closer to feeling like I was doing meaningful work.
Two years ago, in the middle of an existential crisis, I had a moment of clarity: the Earth didn’t need saving; the Earth would be fine. I needed to serve people. We were so divided from one another and disconnected from nature that I knew I had to start by gathering, listening, and sharing. I closed my landscape business and started hosting sisterhood retreats to encourage women to gather in community and align with the wisdom of nature’s cycles. These gatherings were so fulfilling, but I still needed to earn a living.
Then, in January, I heard back about a dream job I had applied for a year earlier. By February, I was hired as the Program Manager for the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, an award-winning global non-profit that plants fruit trees where the harvest directly serves local communities. This year alone, we’ve planted orchards alongside communities in the Twin Cities, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, the Navajo Nation, the Pueblo of Zuni, and the Chippewa Bands of Lake Superior. Next up: the Amazon River basin in Peru.
Traveling the world with this mission has taught me what sustainable communities truly look like. I’ve watched resource-scarce communities unite to build schools, financial cooperatives, and communal farms where everyone contributes, and everyone benefits.
Some might call me an idealist, and I would agree. I believe that we create our own reality by where we place our focus. Building a new reality is always easier when we anchor it in shared values and work together to honor them. Today, I still host gatherings when I can squeeze them in between planting trips, but I find deep satisfaction in knowing that I can use my lifetime of varied skills to bring people together around a common goal of caring for each other and the Earth that nourishes us all.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. I had to learn to really put myself and my desires first, give up the need for external validation, and trust that by doing what felt right to me, I would be filling a space that only I could fill.
I had to learn that my worth was not tied to productivity or earning or output, but to the simple fact that I am a living being.
I had to stop trying to be what everyone wanted and trust that by being uniquely myself (as disjointed as my skillset felt), the people that were looking for me would be able to find me much more easily.
It’s been a long and painful road, and one that I didn’t feel comfortable walking confidently until I turned 50 and recognized that I couldn’t live the next half of my life for everyone else. But I can’t imagine ever trying to fit all of my “square-peggishness” into another round hole. The best thing we can ever do for ourselves is embrace and celebrate that we’re not for everyone and trust that there’s a space that is waiting for you to step into.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I do a lot of things, but what I’m most proud of is bringing people together from all walks of life, challenging narrow ideas of “what is” or “what should be,” and cheering them on as they step into a fuller, more grounded and confident expression of themselves.
Sometimes that means facilitating a group of women in a workshop or retreat, but for now, it’s most often meeting with partners who have a vision for helping their communities thrive. We brainstorm ways to collaborate, and then I help organize the moving parts and logistics. I show up with fruit trees and cheer on community members as they work together to plant communal orchards that will feed everyone.
Honestly, it feels like my job is simply to show up, be helpful, and support others in doing work for the collective good, and to me, that feels like the most rewarding work in the world.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I’ve always thought of myself as a risk-taker, and most of my life has felt like a trust-fall.
In my 20s, I moved to Paris with nothing but a backpack and big dreams of walking the fashion runways. While that part didn’t work out, wandering the streets of Paris and traveling through Germany and the Netherlands for 3 months ended up being an experience that changed my life.
Next, I moved to Chicago (where I didn’t know a soul) with no work, no agent, and only my first and last month’s rent, just because I had a feeling I was supposed to live there. It was hard for a few months, but then I stayed for 5 years, made lifelong friends, met my husband (whom I’ve been married to for almost 24 years), worked a ton, and also started my lifelong journey in bodywork and the birth community where I advocated for mothers and babies for many years.
In 2004, I moved to NYC, and my husband promised to follow shortly after. I lived there for almost 10 years, continued my work in evidence-based birth advocacy, and even gave birth to my first son at home. That birth ended up in Ricki Lake’s award-winning documentary, The Business of Being Born. There I met Julia Barnett, who also gave birth in that movie, and we became dear friends. Working with women and helping them feel empowered during one of the most transformative events of their lives was incredibly rewarding.
Eight years later, Hurricane Sandy made it hard to stay in NY/NJ, and we made an offer on a home in Texas. It was a massive risk: we hadn’t sold our place in New Jersey yet, my husband hadn’t been transferred to an Austin location yet, and we had no idea where he would be working between Round Rock and San Antonio. We chose Dripping Springs because it seemed “central.” Next thing you know, I found out that I moved 5 minutes away from my old friend Julia. She and I started making films together, and our first one premiered at SXSW!
I’m not saying the risks were easy or that I was fearless. I’ve been terrified every step of the way. What I’m saying is that every time I’ve taken a big risk, my life has flourished in ways I could not have predicted. For a time after my kids were born, I was in a tough place and made a lot of decisions from fear. Looking back, those choices led me down paths that stifled my growth and my joy every time.
Today, I try to wait and see how decisions sit in my body before I respond. This way, I come from a grounded place of self-knowledge. Decisions don’t feel like risks anymore; they feel like trust, which is what they always were after all—even though the ego really hates uncertainty, so it felt scary and risky. We truly can never know what will happen in the next moment of our lives. The minute we make peace with uncertainty and understand that the only thing within our control is how we respond, the freer we are and the less risky our life feels.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/myraonfyra
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myraonfyra/
