A renowned speaker, and bestselling author, Dr. Gabor Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories, and his own insights and experience to present a broad perspective that enlightens and empowers people to promote their own healing and that of those around them. 

As an author, Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. He is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Simon Fraser University

 

 

 

Canada’s First Nations citizens face challenges most people

in our society have no knowledge or experience of.

 

Statistics cannot tell the story, but they are fair indicators.

Whether we look at the proportion of Aboriginal inmates

of prisons—nearly a third of all prisoners in our Home and

Native Land are native; the appallingly high suicide rates

in First Nations communities; the number of Aboriginal

children in foster care in provinces like Alberta or

Manitoba; or the high rates of diabetes and other illnesses,

we see that something about life in Canadian culture

has placed our Native people at a great disadvantage.

That something is called colonialism and its legacies of

economic deprivation, political disempowerment, cultural

devaluation, spiritual loss, and ongoing racism. And, most

insidiously, we see within the communities the impact of

colonialism and of its worst expression, the residential

school system that for a century abducted Native children

from their homes and subjected them to emotional,

physical, and sexual abuse. They have left the terrible

consequences of lateral violence, alcoholism, addictions,

and trans-generational trauma that blight the lives of young

people and cloud the future of their children, yet unborn.

 

None of these evils originated from within Native culture.

On the contrary, recent studies have confirmed that the

culture of the hunter-gatherer tribes provided an ideal

environment for childhood development: a community,

parents who were present, several generations of relatives,

healthy physical activity, contact with nature, spiritual

connection, traditions, and elders who provided guidance.

Fortunately, those traditions still exist. Though obscured,

they remain accessible. The challenge now is to revivify

them, to strengthen them, to bring their generative and

healing power to bear on the lives of young people today.

 

The wisdom of Native tradition is well exemplified by

the Medicine Wheel, which teaches that human health,

balance, and happiness must rest on four foundations:

body, spirit, mind, and emotion. The separation that

Western medical practice and Western thinking impose

between mind and body and spirit does not exist for the

Aboriginal view of human nature. The irony is that this

separation has also been debunked by recent scientific

discoveries: modern research has validated the unifying

traditional perspective. Ancient awareness and new

knowledge meet and verify one another.

 

Some of the people interviewed in this manual have

overcome the debilitating effects of trauma: people, for

example, who have transformed their lives from addiction

to creativity, from the slavery of destructive habits to

freedom, possibility, and contribution. These teachers can

also testify that mind, body, spirit, and emotion, if brought

into balance, provide the basis for a healthy life.

 

The earth element of the body, the water element of

our emotional flow, the air element of our intellectual

processes, and the fire element of our spiritual vision

together give us the motivation, the energy, the power,

and the insight to live inspired lives. Our relationships with

the world and with one another then form the natural and

communal context in which our lives can unfold to their

fullest capacities.

 

The Alberta Indigenous Games seek to provide just such

a context. In bringing together young people with elders

and other mentors, the Games build community in which

new experiences can be informed by traditional wisdom. In

offering opportunity for youth to challenge their bodies,

the Games restore the connection to physicality that has

been eroded by the sedentary habits of modern life. Held

outdoors, the Games restore our experience of Nature,

of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, of the sustaining spirit of

Creation of which we, each of us, form a small, temporary,

but also eternal and essential part. No matter what we

have suffered, no matter what harm we may have done to

ourselves or to others, no matter what abuse has alienated

us from love, we have opportunity to learn and experience

that the true relationship to Reality has never been lost

and cannot be.

 

These Games were initiated out of love, by people whose

own suffering made them aware of the suffering of their

people; they were created out of possibility, by people

whose vision was not limited by their painful experiences;

they were born out of creativity, brought to life by people

who recognize that what human beings can create together

has universal beauty, a beauty that the world’s manengendered and artificial ugliness can never overshadow; and they arose from power, guided by people who do not accept the myth that we are weak and helpless, isolated, or doomed by our past.

 

It is an honour to be associated with these Alberta

Indigenous Games, even if only in spirit, at a distance. May

all participants find liberation and joy, health and strength,

community and wisdom. May we all be free.