It is both confronting and overwhelming to analyse the word courage and attempt to put something decent onto paper about the feelings, thought and emotions that rise to the surface when diving deeply into the seven letter word.

As a First Nations woman, living and navigating life in this colony, I determine quickly in this analysis of courage that it is in fact incorrectly evaluated in the colony.

Imagine if our courageous acts were scored, if certain acts of individual or collective courage became a competition. It would be and it is, an un fair game. How can the courage of a First Nations woman be scored against the courage of a white woman?

Courage in the colony is most commonly mapped against the courage of whitefullas.

When being courageous as a whitefella, you’re cushioned in white privilege, you know that you’re most likely going to be celebrated by the country, you know that your life matters to this country and that your white life is worthy of fighting for and the pedestal to share your story of courage is no doubt effective immediately.

There is no denial of the existence of courage in white communities, but it is undeniable incomparable to ours.

I think of a First Nations child, getting ready for their first day of school or their first footy training session. The thoughts going through their mind, will there be any other Blakfullas at this school, will anyone be my friend or will they racially profile me before they even know my name? Will the football team embrace me or push me away?

It is courageous for any child to start something new, but that courage of a Blak child to walk into the school or run onto the local footy field is far greater than their white counter part.

I think of a First Nations mother, seeking help and safety from domestic or family violence. The thoughts going through their mind, will they report me to child protection? Will my children be removed from me and placed into out of home care? Will the police arrest me and view me as the perpetrator? Will the police believe me at all? What is safer, living through family violence, or seeking safety from the systems that were built to destroy our lives, the colonial institutions that continue to kill my people.

It is courageous for any woman to seek safety from domestic or family violence, but the courage required of a First Nations mother vs the courage required of a white mother are undeniably contrasting.

Blak courage is fighting for yours and your community’s lives when you know that outside our communities’ our lives don’t matter in this colony. Blak courage is demanding the worth of your life, of your story, of your culture, whilst simultaneously knowing the systems you’re surrounded by were built not to include you but destroy you, your culture, your community.

The backdrop of determining courage for white people in Australia is nothing compared to the back drop of First Nations courage in this country. Blak courage is necessary for the survival of the oldest continuing culture in the world. Blak courage is not a choice, it is a mandate from our ancestors, our elders, our lands, waters and totems.

I reflect on courage and how it could be perceived that I am courageous in some way and yet I am I am stuck with wonder, and ask myself if celebrating courage is glorifying the violence you were faced with when having to be courageous, if of course the courageous act involved the risk and threat of your life being stolen from you and with that thought I hesitate, but push forward within the discomfort but desire to share and delve deeper.

I am travelling back to the 11^th of February 2023, 16 months ago. A normal weekend for me, heading out bush for a run, with a pit stop at my favourite local op shop on the way. The sun is shining, skies are blue, when inspired by the elements of country displaying pure beauty, my mind body and spirit rises above the reality of the colony for blakfullas, I welcome this moment, this sunny day as a circuit breaker.

I learnt about courage when my circuit breaker was stolen from me, when a violent white male chose to use violence against a woman, in the middle of the bush, that woman was me, lying on the forest floor.

I have voluntarily laid my Gunditjmara body on country countless times throughout my life, to connect, to heal, to protest. This time was a different laying of my body, but despite how I got there, what that violent white male didn’t know, was how strong the connection to country is for Blak women.

I think back to that moment that felt like forever, that moment where I lay helplessly on the forest floor, in the Lal Lal state forest just outside of Ballarat. The memory of waking up staring at the tree canopy spinning above is gut wrenching, I laid there momentarily and accepted my death.

I laid there and wondered if this was how every missing and murdered First Nations woman feels in their final moments, a year on from my attack, I can’t help but also wonder if this was how Samantha Murphy felt when she was murdered going for a run, only 4 days before the anniversary of my attack and only 5 minutes’ drive a part. 

When coming to the realisation of my reality, the reality that in fact my heart was beating, I could feel my chest rising and falling, I was breathing, I was alive, alive 4kms deep into the forest, blood staining the yellow sun on my Aboriginal flag t shirt, one eye completely closed from the swelling and everything blurry and spinning around me, I was alive.

I was crippled by the swarming of flies around me when trying to find my way out of the forest that day, attracted to the blood I was covered in, I was almost convinced that the flies were on the side of the man that had knocked me unconscious. It was the presence of the flies that I blamed for taking wrong turns and ending up on the wrong motorbike tracks I had been running on.

In this moment, my courage was refusing to accept my death, my courage was not allowing the fear of what was happening to consume my body, rather to stay grounded and connected with the country that I knew so well. Despite the crippling of the flies, the spinning of the bush, I eventually made it back to my car.

I remember, whilst waiting for help to arrive, pulling down that little mirror in my car above me, and looking at myself for the first time. I was shocked at what I saw staring back at me in that mirror, but what I saw in that moment was a warrior, an image if a warrior that I will draw strength from for the rest of my life.

After 2 months of being debilitated by a severe concussion, I put the runners back on. The tears flowed, my heart raced, but to be running again, meant that I had successfully not allowed for that violent white male to steal from me my love for running. In fact, I ran more than I ever had run in my life last year, I trained for my first marathon, and 6 months later found myself in tears, disbelief, joy, pride, when crossing the New York Marathon finish line.

You know, I didn’t think I would need to dig deep for courage a year on from the attack, as deep as what I had dug that day, but I forgot momentarily that I lived in a colony where my life, my blak courage didn’t matter. In fact, my blak courage didn’t exist.

When Samantha Murphy was first announced as missing, myself and my brother were amongst the first to be out searching for her. Despite my psychologist strongly recommending I stopped going out there, one day after the other, I strongly rejected that advice, arguing that I knew how it felt to be alone in the bush after being attacked running.

Within this deeply distressing time, being out in the bush searching for a missing runner, on the 1 year anniversary of my attack running, you would think there would be compassion from the community. Not at all, what I saw and what I experienced was a time where the validity of my attack was being debated through the media and within the community.

Some of the comments I read included:

“I know this isn’t same but nearly exactly a year ago. Maybe this could be or should be looked into where sissy was running… I always thought it was a political stunt as she is a strong activist”

“I always thought the same at the time it happened as it was very coincidental that it timed with the no vote. But I woke up this morning dreaming about it”

“I’m sure she was assaulted but she may have instructed someone to do it. Nothing surprises me anymore with how far activists are willing to go”

It was in this moment, where I was quickly reminded that my life didn’t matter, that my Blak courage wasn’t viewed as courage at all, it was a political stunt, it was me paying someone to assault me because of the upcoming referendum, it was “she was probably just bashed by her partner”. This is the refusal of the colony to a) accept that one of their own attacked me and b) the refusal to accept that I am a fucking courageous warrior to be alive today.

My courage was still demanding that my life mattered, my story of pain and suffering mattered, despite the colony attempting to demand otherwise.

I learnt about courage not because I set out to be courageous but because it was necessary to save my Gunditjmara life.

When starting to write this piece, I asked my brother who has put a lot of work into learning our language, I asked him if there was a word meaning courage, he never got back to me, but upon reflection, I started this piece wondering if there was a Gunditjmara meaning of courage, and through the discomfort of exploring courage and its connection with me, I learnt that maybe I didn’t need a Gunditjmara word representing courage, maybe I just needed to look in the mirror, to see a Gunditjmara woman who is the Gunditjmara meaning of the 7 letter word.