#zackmason — Public Fediverse posts

WR’S 12TH ANNUAL DRONE DAY TAKES PLACE AT THE UPTOWN PARKADE

May 30, 2026 marked the 12th annual Drone Day: a celebration of drone music, community and experimental sound art. Waterloo’s concert was one of 109 gatherings that occurred across 28 countries.   

In Waterloo, Drone Day took place at the top of the uptown parkade, where over 200 people gathered throughout the evening with folding chairs and picnic blankets to listen and watch the […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION AMID TIMES OF DREAD

In April, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of The Walldog, a new local online outlet. This is a critical arts project, one that focuses on the creation of cultural memory and imagination for the future. 

“The Walldog reads public art, ghost signs, murals, textiles, protest aesthetics, and vernacular design as openings into potential histories and yet-to-be-imagined futures, […]

JUN-KAN PERMACULTURE IS ON A MISSION OF REPAIR

Just off Notre-Dame Rd. in Petersburg, Ontario is the Jun-kan Permaculture Garden. The garden sits on one of 20 acres in the Petersburg Community Garden, and volunteers tend permaculture food forests and annual vegetable terraces.   

The garden was started in 2022 when the land’s owner, Daryl Dore decided he no longer wanted to rent his fields to cash-cropping commercial farmers. Dore contacted Doug Jones of the Waterloo Regional Community Garden Network and proposed that his land be available to individuals, especially new Canadians.  

While the proposal was eagerly accepted, years of cash cropping and heavy pesticide use had left the soil damaged.  

“In a word, this soil was dead. And poisoned,” Barbara Hankins, one of Jun-kan’s volunteers, said.  

Permaculture gardening operates on the basis of symbiosis and diversity. A wide array of individual species are planted in cooperative guilds to work in concert with each other and the environment. Together, they thrive and improve the quality of the land they are growing on.   

This is where the name Jun-kan comes from. The garden’s website explains, it is a Japanese word that translates roughly to “the universe,” or “the cycle of life”. In accordance with the principles of permaculture, Jun-kan’s first step was to plant swaths of five distinct cover crops: clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, field peas, and rye. Quickly, the earth began to heal and the gardeners started producing food, still with permaculture in mind.  

“[We ask ourselves,] ‘what does the ground need? What do the plants need? How can I give to them because they are giving to me?’,” Hankins said.  

In turn, the land gives back to its farmers, not just in food, but in a more existential way as well. This is especially helpful at Jun-kan, where many of the volunteers are new Canadians and do not own their own land. People are given the opportunity to form a relationship with the land they may not otherwise have been able to. This is crucial for a sense of belonging.  

“This garden supports a huge diversity of growers from around the world, and it’s nourishing to see how the diversity of culturally relevant foods, approaches, skills, stories…the diversity enhances our resilience as a community of gardeners,” Nikola Barsoum, one of Jun-kan’s founding volunteers, said.  

The ethos of repair and repurposing extends beyond physical gardening and the dignity of the volunteers as well. In 2023, ongoing war in Lebanon put Hankins’ family in danger, and here in KW, her house burned down. The garden provided the family with relief, repairing them in the wake of the tragedies. The bricks from their home were salvaged and used to cobble Jun-kan’s community fire pit.  

“We went through so much that year. This was my therapy. Coming out here, and just being with the land, with the earth, with the butterflies, and feeding the insects and the birds… Watching things grow is very therapeutic,” Hankins said.  

Restoring the land, offering a dignified community for newcomers and a sanctuary for its volunteers, Jun-Kan is on a mission of repair. For more information, the garden can be found on Instagram @junkanpermaculture, or on their website. 

#agriculture #BarbaraHankins #belonging #dougJones #Gardening #junKan #nikolaBarsoum #Ontario #permaculture #Petersburg #RandyMoore #waterlooRegionalCommunityGarden #ZackMason

OUT OF THE BOX COUNSELLING CATERS TO MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

Out of the Box Counselling and Collaborations is a counseling and support
service for Two Spirit, LGBTQIA+, Neurodivergent and Nonspeaking people, and those who love them. They provide one-on-one counseling, group counseling, Spelling to Communicate (S2C) work and workshops rooted in principles of Indigenous sovereignty, anti- oppression, Disability, Trans and Queer rights. Their mission is to reframe disability and celebrate the diverse ways people live, love, and think.

Out of the Box was originally conceived in 2021 by Krystal Hilchey-Muise. As a Neurodivergent and Queer person, Hilchey-Muise was struggling to find a work environment that was accessible to them. They wanted to create a Neurodivergent-affirming space for clients and decided to start
a practice that aligned with a framework of Disability justice,

Neurodivergent affirming, Queer affirming, decolonial and anti- oppressive values.

“What [Hilchey-Muise] was being told to offer in some of their past work environments wasn’t what [Neuroqueer] clients were needing,” Monica van Schaik, Hilchey-Muise’s business partner, said.

Van Schaik joined Out of the Box the next year in 2022 after completing their master’s thesis on Dyslexic narratives of Neurodiversity.

“Our collaboration together is so based on our neurotypes,” van Schaik said. “There are certain things that [Hilchey-Muise is] super good at that they do, and there are certain things that I’m good at that they struggle with.”

Their own Neuroqueer identities are part of what make Hilchey-Muise and van Schaik well suited to their work. They have a personal understanding of where their clients come from.

Rather than approaching the counseling they give from a position of authority, they offer guidance in a non- hierarchal way, drawing on lived experiences as well as their extensive training and education to help their clients.

Mirroring their own journeys, they seek to help people understand and accept themselves in a culture that often forces assimilation. “We actually have diversity within the human community, and we’re looking to figure out how to embrace that,” van Schaik said. “What does it mean to be ourselves? What does it mean to learn about ourselves when we haven’t been provided with opportunities to do so? Because the focus is often on how to fix us, to make us someone else.”

For more information, visit https://outoftheboxcounselling. ca/.

#decolonial #disability #hilcheyMuise #indigenousSovereignty #JessiWood #LGBTQIA_ #neurodivergent #nonSpeakingPeople #outOfTheBoxCounselling #queerRights #trans #twoSpirit #vanSchaik #ZackMason

OUT OF THE BOX COUNSELLING CATERS TO MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

Out of the Box Counselling and Collaborations is a counseling and support
service for Two Spirit, LGBTQIA+, Neurodivergent and Nonspeaking people, and those who love them. They provide one-on-one counseling, group counseling, Spelling to Communicate (S2C) work and workshops rooted in principles of Indigenous sovereignty, anti- oppression, Disability, Trans and Queer rights. Their mission is to reframe disability and celebrate the diverse ways people live, love, and think.

Out of the Box was originally conceived in 2021 by Krystal Hilchey-Muise. As a Neurodivergent and Queer person, Hilchey-Muise was struggling to find a work environment that was accessible to them. They wanted to create a Neurodivergent-affirming space for clients and decided to start
a practice that aligned with a framework of Disability justice,

Neurodivergent affirming, Queer affirming, decolonial and anti- oppressive values.

“What [Hilchey-Muise] was being told to offer in some of their past work environments wasn’t what [Neuroqueer] clients were needing,” Monica van Schaik, Hilchey-Muise’s business partner, said.

Van Schaik joined Out of the Box the next year in 2022 after completing their master’s thesis on Dyslexic narratives of Neurodiversity.

“Our collaboration together is so based on our neurotypes,” van Schaik said. “There are certain things that [Hilchey-Muise is] super good at that they do, and there are certain things that I’m good at that they struggle with.”

Their own Neuroqueer identities are part of what make Hilchey-Muise and van Schaik well suited to their work. They have a personal understanding of where their clients come from.

Rather than approaching the counseling they give from a position of authority, they offer guidance in a non- hierarchal way, drawing on lived experiences as well as their extensive training and education to help their clients.

Mirroring their own journeys, they seek to help people understand and accept themselves in a culture that often forces assimilation. “We actually have diversity within the human community, and we’re looking to figure out how to embrace that,” van Schaik said. “What does it mean to be ourselves? What does it mean to learn about ourselves when we haven’t been provided with opportunities to do so? Because the focus is often on how to fix us, to make us someone else.”

For more information, visit https://outoftheboxcounselling. ca/.

#decolonial #disability #hilcheyMuise #indigenousSovereignty #JessiWood #LGBTQIA_ #neurodivergent #nonSpeakingPeople #outOfTheBoxCounselling #queerRights #trans #twoSpirit #vanSchaik #ZackMason

OUT OF THE BOX COUNSELLING CATERS TO MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

Out of the Box Counselling and Collaborations is a counseling and support
service for Two Spirit, LGBTQIA+, Neurodivergent and Nonspeaking people, and those who love them. They provide one-on-one counseling, group counseling, Spelling to Communicate (S2C) work and workshops rooted in principles of Indigenous sovereignty, anti- oppression, Disability, Trans and Queer rights. Their mission is to reframe disability and celebrate the diverse ways people live, love, and think.

Out of the Box was originally conceived in 2021 by Krystal Hilchey-Muise. As a Neurodivergent and Queer person, Hilchey-Muise was struggling to find a work environment that was accessible to them. They wanted to create a Neurodivergent-affirming space for clients and decided to start
a practice that aligned with a framework of Disability justice,

Neurodivergent affirming, Queer affirming, decolonial and anti- oppressive values.

“What [Hilchey-Muise] was being told to offer in some of their past work environments wasn’t what [Neuroqueer] clients were needing,” Monica van Schaik, Hilchey-Muise’s business partner, said.

Van Schaik joined Out of the Box the next year in 2022 after completing their master’s thesis on Dyslexic narratives of Neurodiversity.

“Our collaboration together is so based on our neurotypes,” van Schaik said. “There are certain things that [Hilchey-Muise is] super good at that they do, and there are certain things that I’m good at that they struggle with.”

Their own Neuroqueer identities are part of what make Hilchey-Muise and van Schaik well suited to their work. They have a personal understanding of where their clients come from.

Rather than approaching the counseling they give from a position of authority, they offer guidance in a non- hierarchal way, drawing on lived experiences as well as their extensive training and education to help their clients.

Mirroring their own journeys, they seek to help people understand and accept themselves in a culture that often forces assimilation. “We actually have diversity within the human community, and we’re looking to figure out how to embrace that,” van Schaik said. “What does it mean to be ourselves? What does it mean to learn about ourselves when we haven’t been provided with opportunities to do so? Because the focus is often on how to fix us, to make us someone else.”

For more information, visit https://outoftheboxcounselling. ca/.

#decolonial #disability #hilcheyMuise #indigenousSovereignty #JessiWood #LGBTQIA_ #neurodivergent #nonSpeakingPeople #outOfTheBoxCounselling #queerRights #trans #twoSpirit #vanSchaik #ZackMason

OUT OF THE BOX COUNSELLING CATERS TO MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

Out of the Box Counselling and Collaborations is a counseling and support
service for Two Spirit, LGBTQIA+, Neurodivergent and Nonspeaking people, and those who love them. They provide one-on-one counseling, group counseling, Spelling to Communicate (S2C) work and workshops rooted in principles of Indigenous sovereignty, anti- oppression, Disability, Trans and Queer rights. Their mission is to reframe disability and celebrate the diverse ways people live, love, and think.

Out of the Box was originally conceived in 2021 by Krystal Hilchey-Muise. As a Neurodivergent and Queer person, Hilchey-Muise was struggling to find a work environment that was accessible to them. They wanted to create a Neurodivergent-affirming space for clients and decided to start
a practice that aligned with a framework of Disability justice,

Neurodivergent affirming, Queer affirming, decolonial and anti- oppressive values.

“What [Hilchey-Muise] was being told to offer in some of their past work environments wasn’t what [Neuroqueer] clients were needing,” Monica van Schaik, Hilchey-Muise’s business partner, said.

Van Schaik joined Out of the Box the next year in 2022 after completing their master’s thesis on Dyslexic narratives of Neurodiversity.

“Our collaboration together is so based on our neurotypes,” van Schaik said. “There are certain things that [Hilchey-Muise is] super good at that they do, and there are certain things that I’m good at that they struggle with.”

Their own Neuroqueer identities are part of what make Hilchey-Muise and van Schaik well suited to their work. They have a personal understanding of where their clients come from.

Rather than approaching the counseling they give from a position of authority, they offer guidance in a non- hierarchal way, drawing on lived experiences as well as their extensive training and education to help their clients.

Mirroring their own journeys, they seek to help people understand and accept themselves in a culture that often forces assimilation. “We actually have diversity within the human community, and we’re looking to figure out how to embrace that,” van Schaik said. “What does it mean to be ourselves? What does it mean to learn about ourselves when we haven’t been provided with opportunities to do so? Because the focus is often on how to fix us, to make us someone else.”

For more information, visit https://outoftheboxcounselling. ca/.

#decolonial #disability #hilcheyMuise #indigenousSovereignty #JessiWood #LGBTQIA_ #neurodivergent #nonSpeakingPeople #outOfTheBoxCounselling #queerRights #trans #twoSpirit #vanSchaik #ZackMason

SANCTUARY

The summer Rupert turned 15, his parents decided to sell their house on Finkle street. Rupert had been born on Finkle Street, and up to that point, never been forced to venture outside.  

As a child, when the world became too much, Rupert would duck into his bedroom closet. He’d close the door quietly and nestle down into his small, dark, fabric scented sanctuary. On moving day, Ruper ducked into his (now empty) closet one last time, and tried not to cry.  

The new neighbourhood was a maze of cul-du-sacs, filled with identical houses, and maple trees pruned like lollipops. Rupert hermitted in the blasting air conditioning and watched people outside.  

There was a woman with dark glasses. She walked a little dog, and whenever it got tired, the dog would lay down on its side, and the woman would keep plodding along, dragging it behind her like it was a mop.  

There was a boy about Rupert’s age too. He loped lankily along the sidewalk, and always wore his shoes without socks. When he passed, Rupert would withdraw from the window, just in case.  

To help Rupert’s listlessness, his parents gifted him a little cage filled with hay, and a wheel, and a clear plastic tube, and a hamster. The hamster was grey with quivering, bulbous black eyes.  

Looking at that hamster in that cage all day made Rupert want to scream. In his distress, he left the new house and roamed, pedalling up and down the cul-de-sacs and courts.  

This was how Rupert found Wildgrove Creek.  

Wildgrove Creek wasn’t very wild, and it wasn’t much of a creek. Rupert only knew it was Wildgrove Creek because of a little sign that said so. Really, it was a cement lined ditch behind a stripmall, with slow, shallow water that trickled and disappeared through some sewer pipes and under the highway.  

The creek was smelly, full of blackflies and frogs and a snapping turtle.  

Rupert was transfixed.  

From atop the cement bank, he watched the turtle float and bask. It had dragon claws and a muscular tail covered in swaying mats of algae. It blinked at him like it had been waiting for a meal since the dawn of time and could wait an eternity more. It was a dinosaur, a hermit, its shelter on its back, its round, reptilian eyes like mossy crystal balls. It was not concerned with the past or future, and it was not afraid.  

Over the next days, Rupert told the turtle stories and rolled hotdogs down the side of the basin, watching as the leathery neck extended, the maw gaped, the beak came snapping shut.  

“You’re lucky to have a shell,” he told it. “A hiding place wherever you go.”  

The turtle blinked up from the cement basin with its ancient swampy eyes.  

This went on until the day before Rupert was to start grade 10. That morning, he woke up cold and sweating. He knew that as the school year came on, he would have less time, less energy to see his turtle. This terrified him.  

“I’ll just have to bring it here,” he told his bedroom ceiling. “Then I can see it all the time.”  

That afternoon, when Rupert biked to Wildgrove Creek, the turtle was waiting for him, water flowing around its shell, staring up with a beatific, benevolent smile.  

“I’m going to bring you home,” Rupert said, “I’ll dig you a pond and you can live with me.”  

The turtle gazed up at him like a begging dog. It blinked one murky eye, which Rupert took as agreement.  

He stooped to grab the snapper, and the turtle, now accustomed to eating hot dogs, extending its leathery neck, gaped its maw, and snapped its jaws shut, lopping off Rupert’s pinky.  

Rupert screamed. He stared down at his gushing stump and went weak in the knees.   

The turtle blinked up at him lazily.   

“Ugh!” Holding his bleeding hand, Rupert stumbled up the bank of the creek. All he wanted was to go home. Not to his new house, but to his real home, his bedroom closet on Finkle street.  

But he was losing blood, and he thought he might throw up, and someone else lived there now. He stumbled to the closest house.  

“Help!” Rupert screamed.  

“Arf!” yapped a dog in response.  

Rupert’s heart dropped when he saw who opened the door: the old woman with the dark glasses. Her dog jumped and yapped and snarled .  

“My hand!” Cried Rupert. “I need a doctor!”  

The old woman couldn’t see Rupert’s mangled hand, but she had a grandson who could, and he retched when he saw it.  

He was the lanky boy who wore his shoes without socks. He’d just got his driver’s license. He drove Rupert to the ER and sat with him for nearly eight hours.  

Afterwards, the boy called Rupert ‘Stumps.’  

The two would sit by the creek and laugh. By October, Rupert walked the cul-de-sacs with ease. By January, they started holding hands, by March, they kissed each other, and by June, the boy graduated. He moved. The two broke up.  

The day the boy left, he awkwardly shook Rupert’s pinkiless hand, got into his crappy little car, and left.  

“It’s been good, Stumps.”  

Rupert sniffed. He cried. He wandered, trying to recapture his heart   

Eventually, he found himself on the banks of Wildgrove Creek.  

The turtle was long gone, but the trickle of dirty water sparkled, and the gnats hung in shafts of sun as Rupert stepped in. He followed it, through the dark sewer pipes, and under the rushing drone of the highway, and when Rupert emerged into sunlight at the other end of the tunnel, he found the cement lining gone, and his sobbing eased. The creek opened into a river with dappled, mucky banks. A quiet, peaceful place. A sanctuary.  

He wondered if he’d become more or less like the turtle in the past year. The question made him smile.  

#2SLGBTQIA_ #cement #comingOfAge #culDeSacs #hamster #JessiWood #Neighbourhood #sanctuary #shortFiction #shortStory #story #Summer #ZackMason

FIFTH ANNUAL CHERRY FESTIVAL AT CHERRY PARK

 July 5, 2025 welcomed the fifteenth annual Cherry Festival at Cherry Park in Kitchener. Despite a high of 30°C and next to no cloud cover, over 1,400 people from Waterloo Region flocked to the park to enjoy all the festival had to offer.  

Attractions included the Cherry Train ride for children, a carousel swing ride, mini putt, rock climbing, an inflatable fun house, and more.  The festival also hosted more than 70 vendors, 12 performance acts across two stages, and even a wrestling ring, right  in the middle. 

“It started in 2008… just a small barbecue and a few games, things like that. Then they decided to add on, and build it and try to make it great,” Dan Rudow, chair of the Cherry Festival Organizing Committee, said. 

Rudow, a forklift operator at his day job, and about 100 other neighbourhood volunteers made the festival possible. Rudow finds the work rewarding. 

“It’s a fun thing to do with the neighbours, and I just wanted to provide a nice neighbourhood for my daughter to live in,” he said. 

The greatest attraction at the 2025 Cherry Festival was, of course, the cherries. Ice cream, pies, tarts, brownies, jam, squares and more were available. 

“[People] should volunteer if they think they can do better,” one patron said. “Besides, it’s moving fine!” 

And once the festival goers got their goodies, satisfaction was high. 

“The crust is good, the flavour’s good. Not too sweet, not too tart. I dig it,” TJ, another attendee, said.  

He and his partner, Amelia, were enjoying their slices in the sun as a distraction.  

“Today’s her due date. So, we’re just eating cherry pie, waiting for a baby,” he said. 

TJ and Amelia were joining a long tradition of family stories and the Cherry Festival.  

“Kids have grown up coming to this, and now they’re bringing kids of their own. It’s a really satisfying thing just to be part of something fun,” Rudow said. 

#2025CherryFestival #brownies #carouselSwing #cherryFestival #CherryPark #DanRudow #iceCream #inflatableFunHouse #miniPutt #pies #rockClimbing #squares #theCherryTrain #ZackMason