My name is Madeline Dion Stout.
My queen name is Kittesgrove, which stands in for ancient woman or child with an ancient
spirit. My chapter was about the shifting paradigm and because on the one hand I see
our health and wellness on a spectrum and I see on the one hand it goes to me a wowy win that
means ascribed health and wellness. It's hard to translate it because there's a lot of spirit
behind it but we usually say it versions into ascribed wellness and at the other end of the
spectrum is Kaskita Masu and me a wowy win and that means achieved health and wellness and but
always there's this mediating force which is a helping and assisted health and wellness and I
think it's extremely important to pay attention to that mediating force and to always remember that
it's the greatest amount of tension the greatest amount of conflicts and contradictions if you
will is always at the center of the spectrum it's not at one end or the other it's always where
it's in the middle you know because if you think of this spectrum of health and wellness you might
have a bow and so so you'd have on the one hand you'd have the ascribed health and wellness and
on the other you'd have the achieved health and wellness but if it's a bow then the assisted
wellness health and wellness symbolically could be a ball let's say it's a sphere and it'd be
easy for it to fall one way or the other so it depends I keep we can think of it as a straight
linear spectrum but we can also bend it in all kinds of ways and we can actually make this the
assisted health and wellness the bigger circle and then we can place the the line so to speak the
spectrum as if it's an antler of a deer or caribou and so you've got this assisted health
and wellness which is the face of the universe or the beings and then you've got this bow sitting
on top here and on the one so again there you go with that with that that spectrum not really
always being as you would perceive it but imagining it in so many ways which then gives I think
it wheels a lot of the complexity and fluidity of of paradigm shifts there they're not they're
not linear they're not circular they could be spherical they could be happening coexisting all
these three parts of how three ways three journeys to health and wellness or they could be giving
off to one another or they could be subsuming the other so it's it's you know I try to think of
although it's just a written text there's I guess the the depth and paradigm shifts hopefully
surfaces somewhat in in the chapter I contributed I don't know if it's hope I feel so much about
Aboriginal health now I just feel such an urgency about doing something about it about really
transforming our realities as the conference theme stated I feel an urgency rather than a hope
and the urgency is because at my age and you know my future is behind me so to speak I have seen
a lot I have I have observed some very challenging times for Indigenous people and I know we always
want to focus on the opportunities and the challenges that come together but there have
been and continue to be tremendous challenges I I worry because our people are zoning out I
think the world has become a so harsh and hostile for a lot of Indigenous people they're zoning out
on substance use and violence family violence and and of course broken homes and displacement and
all of that is going on and I really feel our spirits are rather homeless and that's the worst
of it but I also take solace knowing that we have an army behind us now I feel there's a bigger
army behind us I sit at many tables and I hear foundations identifying Indigenous people and
are improving our prospects as a priority for them I I see you know the nurses Association of
Canadian Nurses Association of Canada taking on that that responsibility if you will and so I see
there's a growing army behind us and that's very encouraging because we can't do this alone but I
also would like that army to really look at what what are what are their incentives for now
supporting us is it a material incentive is it because it'll get more funding if they support
us or is is there a strong moral incentive as well for for supporting us and for working with us
on improving our health and health prospects and so that we will realize equity in social health
and health care equity you you
