“The greatest gift you can give the world is to tell your truth.”
~ Cheryl Walters
Welcome to Guiding Song!
Guiding Song is the creative work of Marieke Slovin Lewis and Sarah Reader Harris.
Sarah Reader Harris is a poet and writer based in Brussels, Belgium. Sarah uses poetry as an accessible form of expression to invite people to share their migration experiences.
Marieke is a folk musician, writer, yogi, and editor. She uses a method of songwriting called Story-to-Song (STS) to guide people from around the world through the process of shaping their stories into songs. STS has its roots in the oral folk music tradition of writing songs from stories.
Their work is both participatory and collaborative. It is a collaborative process, which creates opportunities for empathy, connection, and empowerment. STS was designed to be accessible to anyone wishing to write a song from a story. There is no experience required to write your own song.
Marieke co-created the STS method during her time as a doctoral student, studying sustainability education. To learn about the Story-to-Song method, visit: Origins of Story-to-Song
To learn more about the Guiding Song team, visit: Marieke and Sarah
To find out about workshops, individual songwriting, performances, and for all other inquiries, please fill out the contact form below. We look forward to hearing from you 🙂
The “Migration Songs” project is highlighted in several podcasts
Episode 3 “Voices of Resilience: Marieke Slovin Lewis and Sarah Reader Harris
From the “Voices of Resilience” podcast website: In this podcast, we hope to contribute to the shift in the narrative of refugees across the world and encourage stakeholders and listeners alike to take action. We do not want the label of refugee to define these individuals as powerless victims, instead, we intend to portray them as the determined individuals that they are with full agency to succeed in any way they desire, given the right resources.
Episode 9 “Crossings: The Refugee Experience in America“
We are honored to have been invited to share our migration songs on Episode 9: Songs of Migration in Belgium for the podcast Crossings: The Refugee Experience in America. Special thanks to the host and developers of the podcast, Vincent Hostak and Janice Pugh Wohler.
Performing Migration Songs in Brussels
In this video, I perform the migration song “Never Give Up” with musician and composer, Pierre Michaud at Den Teirling in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium in February 2020.
Guiding Song 