It seems that since the beginning of human time, movement has been a natural element of the life cycle. Humans are moving beings. It’s an innate quality of the experience and essence of what it means to be human. We walk. We dance. We express ourselves through our hands (some of us more than…
Tag: Belgium
Pandemic Publishing
The last time I shared an update on all things songwriting in my life was January 23, 2020. At the time, I had no idea the larger world and my own circle within it would literally come to a halt in the middle of March. At the start of 2020, I was feeling inspired…
A wild idea
This past Monday at the refugee center was cold and gray, but at least it wasn’t raining. We take what we can get with the weather in January in Belgium. The previous week, we had spread out dozens of sheets of paper with poems and songs from the previous two years and taped them all…
When you cross the border
Two Mondays ago, I met a man named Samba at the refugee center where I volunteer in Brussels, Belgium. He told me he had been in Belgium for a week. My co-volunteer, Sarah, and I had posted a piece of paper on the white door beside our poetry wall as usual. As it was our…
From Africa it’s a long story
The sun shone over Brussels yesterday afternoon, and I experienced the rare occurrence of being too warm for my jacket, scarf, and hat at the tail end of December. I set them on the bench by our open “office” space at a corner of the covered corridor at the refugee asylum center known as Petit-Château…
Open the Borders
Without fail, this week’s visit to the refugee center was one, which offered an opportunity for the exchange of culture, experience, and language, as well as the creation of something beautiful. Sarah and I arrived at the entrance to the center at the same moment, so we entered together and went to sit on…
All we have is this moment
I am often alarmed at the violent nature of enmity with which people respond to other beings. I recently posted a photograph of an enormous spider, which had bitten me when I had put my arm into my jacket sleeve, where it had been quietly minding its own business. At shaken as I was by…
Ride the creative wave
I recently wrote a song from my friend Mohammed’s story. The song was derived from a very small portion of the much longer story. We filled several large sheets of paper before beginning to work on the chorus, and it was only a few phrases that made it from the story to the finished song….
Marieke is Guiding Song 