The refugee crisis here in Europe has been very much on my mind and heart these last 3 years.
I also released my Stone's Throw Video (premiered on Folk Radio UK) last week.
The song and the video explore themes connected with the emotions of being a refugee.
Below is the description I wrote to accompany the video...
Stone’s Throw is the title track from my new album Stone’s Throw, Lament of The Selkie. I’d been exploring the character and persona of Selkie a shape-shifting seal-woman re-imagined from Orkney Folklore, as she struggled to live her life on land away from her natural habitat of the ocean. More and more Selkie’s internal turbulence seemed to echo the real life struggles of people both in the news headlines and that I met personally. These were the stories of refugees and displaced people, far from home with all the loneliness and chaos, grief and loss that comes with enforced migration. In the legends, in order to marry a Selkie woman her sealskin had to be captured while she was in human form and kept hidden from her unless she find it and take the opportunity to return to her home in the sea. The woman of the legends, taken out of her natural environment, longing for home, misunderstood by those around her that did not understand her culture or her grief and who knew nothing of her life before she lived on land became synonymous in my mind with these real time stories of refugees of the last few years. The video was filmed by my artist husband Bill Taylor-Beales and features Isla Horton who achingly portrays a displaced mother separated from home and family.
I am personally disgusted at the British government's response to this crisis- I'm saddened and sickened to the core that it's reached the awful extremes of innocent children washing up on Europe's beaches and I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way... My daughter turns 3 next week... and I like so many other parents keep thinking... What if it was her?
There will be a national day of action calling for our government to support and allow refugees asylum in Britain on September 12 with protests scheduled all over the UK-
We will be at our local Cardiff one... with banners reading REFUGEES ARE WELCOME HERE!
http://stopwar.org.uk/events/stop-the-war-events-national/12-september-refugees-are-welcome-here-national-day-of-action
Come and join us (or find your local demonstration) to send a message to our government and the world that we care, that we stand in solidarity with our fellow humans and citizens of earth...
I'll leave with a link to some other practical ways folks can help if they want to make a difference to this situation... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/5-practical-ways-you-can-help-refugees-trying-to-find-safety-in-europe-10482902.html
If you have children at school who would also like to reach out to children who are refugees please consider becoming involved in The Paddington Project- an initiative set up by my friend Joy French encouraging children to send teddy bears with their own written personal messages of love and support to be distributed among refugee children and families... link here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/713462355464223/?fref=ts
