Aussies with heart
Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann AM
SENIOR AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR
The sun was setting beyond the Canberra hills when Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann stood to speak at the Australian of the Year Awards. A hush fell as she made her way to the stage, her dress the colours of the landscape along the Daly River where she’s spent much of her life. Miriam is 73, a Ngangikurungkurr woman from a community called Nauiyu in the Northern Territory. Ngangikurungkurr, she explains, means “deep water sounds”.
She speaks of , the practice of “deep listening and silent, still awareness,” which she first shared “as a gift” with the Australian people back in 1988. “ is our Aboriginal spirituality,” she tells , “but it’s yours as well. We’ve been smothered by challenges we face day in and day out and sometimes is about bringing people back into reality, to who they are, their being.”
