_ West Winds in bloom and our first season Rasberries fruiting like the creativity of our friends gifting handmades Our park is an Oasis that holds and softens our faces curls our lips into easy smiles makes our eyes twinkle We are held by gorgeous plant magic @opalessence3 @lpwyrd @jackson.k_s

Hey folx, Friends of Watkinson park aka West Winds has been an ongoing pollinator native plant garden since 2015. The project centres poor and unhoused people and seeks to keep that park accessible to those who might feel pushed out by gentrification. We gather every two weeks to share community with each other and the plants who are GLORIOUS. A couple of years ago we got a storage shed that, like anything made today, is not very strong and it has been broken into multiple times. We have now secured the shed but need to replace some tools we lost. If you have any spare tools you're not using, msg us and we will pick up or arrange a time to drop off... Happy gardening!

_ It's great to be back in the garden For this season Was cold that day There is nothing like sitting around a fire Smoke draws our spirits together As does Raspberry Sage tobacco Protecting the space for those who need it Moving those who want space To where they can stretch And soften the square chain linked Park prison of nature We test your limits And we can feel how all the unruly Tall enthusiastic greenery Lightens the energy of people Finding solace is the park Natures abundance comforting Our worn and grieving spirits Oasis in the unknown In this time of devestation

West Winders gathered on Our first day back For the growing season So much glorious garden green Holding park visitors In a leafy hug We were gifted Raspberry canes Put muscle and sweat into Clearing Burdock Lemon Balm Motherwort To make room For berry bushes to grow And maybe feed some birdies And bees So good to put hands in soil And share this humble circle Of dear community Peeps Poor people are welcome We spin our culture So we have somewhere to belong @lpwyrd @jackson.k_s

_ Happy Halloween From the West Winders We did our third Effigy project A grief figure Being in Existential angst At the state of things Of things What can be more horrific Than the repeating of the history Many of us working so hard to Be accountable to Working for a transformed future Only to be plunged into deeper depths Of suffering No words Our community a salve To keep going And together we will Hit the streets As part of the collective HELL NO

_ Happy b-day @opalessence3 Our fierce Elder One whose waters flow freely From their tender wise and aching heart So many decades Fighting On the Frontline Of poverty Racialization Colonization You take so many of us Under your wing Smiling broad Erupting in laughter Every chance you get Ahhhhhh Opal... All of our strength Comes at a price Our vulnerabilities Can never be fully accounted for In this cruel time

🌈🐢 we gathered to honour adult Painted Turtle sacred being so it is told ~ body both map and moon calendar holding the whole world on your back carrying all the colours of the Medicine Wheel ~ beautiful bodies that have survived ice ages... in better days you moved so smoothly through the mud and water before you were injured on a busy highway on your journey from your Summer waters to your Winter place site fidelity calls you to return to the same spot regardless of all the perilous obstacles faced a journey that was so dangerous because our roads are full of risk, not safe settler society's frantic pace does not encourage slowing down stopping to recognize when another being needs our help wrongfully renaming places known for millennia to be Turtle Crossings sadly help came too late here at the garden you were far from home (Saugeen Peninsula) but surrounded with love, not alone honoured with flowers, stories, words of care, compassion and song colourful Butterflies carrying your Spirit home to be with the Ancestors while a little Rat stopped by with a farewell greeting Gratitude for the guidance and gifts from our friend Raylah, two-spirit helper bringing awareness from our hands to the earth back up into our bodies and hearts to reflect on what calls us to love and what heaviness is ready to be let go of holding reminders of the joy and yearning for freedom that lives within us all to be open to an abundance of possibilities ~ trusting that when we are led by love that love is also looking for us blessings to your journey Painted Turtle and to all Human hearts who are willing to slow down and stop to help may that there be always more of us and for your precious young underground where they will stay all winter awaiting the warm days of spring may they be safe from harm that maybe one will survive to grow as big as you ~ and live a long contented life unharmed savoring the feeling of mud in their claws the rush of cool water and warm sun upon their shell and may they know you were here @lpwyrd @mazigh_64 @jackson.k_s @opalessence3

- We got a compost bin! the black plastic one Made our very first offering to nourish organic chemistry to feed this garden that feeds our spirit as do copulating lady bugs going on 9 years now changing every season as the human community fluxes around a core of magical people and those who leave their names painted on rocks to show how meaningful this place is to those in the shelter down the street together in this garden we grow heart cosmic community personal @jackson.k_s @opalessence3 @mazigh_64 @lpwyrd

Fall is in the air unusually cool August leaves just starting to turn Harvest time The medicine garden was started by Indigenous community members Marlene Bluebird Stickings bequeathed funds after she passed to Spirit from her Sixties Scoop settlement to keep the garden gatherings goings The Sweetgrass was given to her by folks at Anishinabe Health The Sage and Tobacco was gifted by a complicated person in community - who I will not name or tell the story of Those of us who are settlers here on these Lands unwelcome guests with responsibility handle these medicines with Indigenous community members and for their community and in memory of Marlene She loved the garden She was the one who named it West Winds When I say she was from the Street I mean that with all the Honoring that poor people deserve for living and knowing on the margins of this violence Marlene "looks to the sky" felt and observed beyond the b.s. served up as a life Marlene felt through lightening rain rivers clouds railroad tracks secret places guitar licks painting beer anger grief... and love Names on stones we are here we are precious

_ Cool breezy work day West Winds magic bringing relief unemployment homelessness death work rejection addiction global boiling invisibility a gathering of weirdo outliers tenderizing the compacted soil making place for Sweetgrass to flourish bringing precious water (not to be taken it granted) to precious green friends untangling vines from stems gazing at the miracle called flower discovering an itsy bitsy monarch worm (sadly, only to be washed away in the stream) tying back those vigorous plants Suflower, Mulva Mallow, Motherwort to let sun in to those hidden deep in their forest bringing local Blueberries so sweet and first Peaches not quite ripe enough to dribble juices down our chins and homemade pickled Milkweed Pods - what a special treat and multiple bags of spaghetti and canned goods in an impromptu food distribution for those with sparse larders finding the weight of our being gently supported in a hammock regardless we find joy and so many hugs we feel into the moment the light starts to twinkle And after we begin the parting of ways with a collective embrace arms linked heads bowed eyes downcast closed a prayer offered by Raylah reminds us of our sacredness and our love for the earth as being drifts the universe