Hi Sister Crones
Soothing, nurturing, heart warming circle last week. So grateful. 

My creative identity has expressed as:
- Teacher (created and taught an infection control program as a registered nurse in the 80s, and created and taught  A Spiritual Journey to the Devine Feminine program at Henry Ford Focus on Women Dept in the 90s)
- Creating a business (built and managed a successful hotel in Easter Island 2003-2017)

- Writing (published my book, Te'ora. From Vulnerability and Wounding to Wisdom and Freedom, in 2024) 

What feels limiting?
Several marketing specialists have talked with me about marketing my book, but their marketing packages all focus on marketing me, not the book. That's intimidating for me. I spent 4 hard years writing a good book with an important message. I want my book to be successful on its own merit, not on my personality as its author. I realize I have some healing to do around this in order to free Teora for her journey, so I've set an appointment with Mara to start working on releasing any blockage I'm holding. 

I'm eager to sit with you all again this Friday. 
Warm hugs
Sharon

Hello My Fellow Sister Crones,

I am very grateful to be part of this group of Sisters.  I felt so very nourished and delighted in our time of sharing together this past Friday.  I want to let you all know that I will be unable to attend this coming Friday's circle.  I had made plans for this upcoming weekend before we established the day/time of our gatherings.  I feel sad just thinking about missing it!!

My creative identity has expressed herself, most fully, as a mother and a grandmother.  I longed to be a mother from the time I was a very young child. I feel as though I came into the world with this aspiration.  I mothered four children and the living of life with them was rich with creativity and still continues with my grandchildren, and inside of me.  Home is my medium.  Reading together, playing together, dancing and singing, cooking and sharing meals, making art, being curious about something, and then the journey of finding out about that something, being present in nature, or just noticing a soft breeze coming in through the screen on a summer day.  

What feels limiting is my lack of energy as I have aged.  Also, I am experiencing some cognitive decline which affects my confidence and sense of self. 

I look forward to being with you all next Friday.

Lucia

I consider myself a Creative Teacher. My journey began as a young child. As soon as I could read. I was always curious; actively pursuing information on all kinds of subjects. My father purchased a leather-bound 1953 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, and it always occupied an entire wall in the living room of our tiny apartment. I will always be grateful to him for providing this tremendous gift. 

Our house was always filled with music as well. From Bethoven and Tchaikovsky to Miles Davis. I took piano lessons from grade 3 to high school. I wanted to be a music therapist. But again, my desire to know, got in the way of my desire to do. I changed my major from music to psychology at MSU. 

After graduation, my need for Information became knowledge and I learned to synthesize and then share what I knew with everyone who would listen. Communicating and a desire to share what I know led me to a career in teaching. And that is where I am most comfortable and creative.

I've always been attracted to painting, and then later to sculpture and fiber arts (I made a lot of my own clothes). Painting and collage and all forms of visual arts are the most frustrating to me. So many mediums and creations out there; how much can I learn all of these? 

I now realize that I approach art making like I do information gathering; with a drive to know as much as I can, and being so afraid to do. It's intimidating to make the leap to creating. 

Hello Sisters,

When I think of my creative identity I feel kind of like a Jill of all trades!  My first creative expression of love was music—I love playing the piano and singing and even now hearing some music and singing gives me the same kind of feeling as a beautiful sunrise or rainstorm. Music is present for me everywhere—my body, mind, emotions, and spirit. In fact, in adolescent times playing the piano was my main and safest way of expressing my emotions.

As I grew in the world my love of reading made me want to be a writer and in fact reading others’ ideas now is a main source of creative impulse for me.  I learned to write well enough to teach writing to others and I think some of my most creative acts were in inviting others to enjoy modes of creation they thought they couldn’t and to accept chances to be good at something they thought they didn’t like or were “bad at”. Teaching like this has brought a lot of joy into my life.

Now I think I am creative everywhere and that my creativity is a state of mind, a kind of lateral thinking that likes to consider odd things side by side.  I still don’t know myself as a creative X, but mostly just love trying anything—sketching, molding, weaving, reading oracle/tarot cards, sewing blankets by hand without a pattern…

For me it is always about the process and that is both positive and negative I guess.  It’s obviously positive in many ways—hours of enjoyment, sharing the process with others (especially kids in my life) and generally just having fun and surprises playing around, but the one negative (addressed in your podcast Monalise) is that I do have some creative projects I would like to complete and share and have difficulty doing this.

I’m a shy dancer.  I have never felt comfortable dancing. But in this case I rely on Linda Barry (a cartoonist and creativity teacher) who says the two questions “Is it good?” and “Does it suck?” have no sway here.

xo Cindy

Hello sister crones!

In my earlier, earlier life, I used to think of myself as an artist, a musician, a writer and an actress!  I had/have just enough natural talent in each of these areas to give me confidence to participate in those arenas. Then in early adulthood -- all of that went into the closet and I was in survival mode - my creativity was put to use in keeping my head above water and tending to my family. Creativity then, was problem solving on many different levels. Now and over the last few decades I feel myself to be more of a designer. Yes, I like to create beautiful spaces with what resources I have at hand...but I think mostly I like to design experiences. 

Creative expression through movement, dance has always felt intimidating to me. Not necessarily free-form movement, but the types of dance where you need to learn a routine.    I also feel so much like a dabbler in many things. Kind of like I'm afraid to go deep into any one discipline and achieve a level of mastery. I think there's a fear of failure there. That I'll find out I'm really not so talented after all.  Imposter syndrome. 

Good Evening Sister Crones,

Thinking about myself as a "creative" is foreign to me. When I was a freshman in high school I took an art class and my parents were very concerned that the assignments took up a lot of my time. They felt that I should focus on my other classes so I could get into college. (I was the first one on either side of the family to go to college.) I feel like from that point on I thought that anything I did had to have a purpose. When my kids were young I sewed clothes for them. Now I sew quilts and insist that people use them. I do needlepoint but only Christmas stockings. I occasionally do a little painting, but only to make birthday cards for friends and family.

Another area where I have done things for a purpose is technology. When my oldest daughter started school I took on writing a monthly newsletter for the school. At that time I was doing it on a typewriter. When my husband bought an early home computer, I taught myself to use it and made the newsletter that way, decorating it with clipart. I was able to take those computer skills into starting a business doing desktop publishing and teaching for a computer training company. Those computer skills eventually got me a full time job as an "engineer" using the computer tools I had learned. A work friend used to tell me I had a natural talent as a project manager. Is that creative? I don't know. 

As far as anything that is "off limits", I would say singing. When I was growing up I was told things like "you can't carry a tune in a bucket" and "just mouth the words because you throw everyone else off key": I've worked at getting beyond that, but it's still very uncomfortable for me. 

janet