I stumbled across a volunteer online community last year, called “sister i”. This website was created and is maintained by Colleen (Kei) Gratton. Its mandate is “helping women globally support and encourage one another as they unveil their creative potential and give birth to new and innovative thoughts and ideas.”

Each season sister i supplies a guide for members of the sister i community. This season (winter) focuses on exploring and reflecting.

The following is the basic structure of what sister i has to offer women.

Daily Stones – “Your daily stones include a silent word to meditate on, a message to inspire your creative journey, a poll to get you thinking about your creative expression and a creative inventory question and well-being quiz to help you discover your creative strengths.”

Creative Stones – Similar to Daily stones but is a weekly exercise designed to give you a new perspective on how you are working to achieve your creative goals.

Creative Goals Sisters – Provides an opportunity to find and share your experience and goals with other women with similar goals. This aspect is more interactive and involves meetings “by phone, in person or by email.” There is a sister i guide to help direct the meetings.

Gallery – Promotes the artistic talents of the sister i community. It is filled with various art forms including photography, painting, and poetry.

Reading Shelf – Articles to print and read as well as book suggestions, all with the purpose of increasing your feminine creative potential. I was surprised and delighted to see a book I’ve read and love: Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, by Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.

Creative Cycle Chart – A weekly calendar to be printed off to track your creativeness as it relates to your physical and emotional well being as well as some factors we take for granted: time, weather, menstrual and moon cycles. The helpful chart gets you to mark these areas every day so you can look back over the month to see if any patterns are affecting your creativity.

Create Well-Being Quiz – Offers a quiz every season to monitor your creative progress. Take the Quiz to see how sister i can help you with your creative goals.

Creative Reminders – An excellent newsletter delivered to your e-box with “a weekly list of exercises, ideas, links and updates to help you stay focused on your creative journey.
Sign up for their newsletter: http://www.sisteri.com/contact/receive.html

In each newsletter you will receive the following tools:
•creative stones
•jewel box (workshops information)
•creative cycle calendar
•daily stones
•silent word (a reflective word)
•words for thought (inspirational quotes)
•creative inventory
•weekly poll

I have been receiving the season’s reminder for some time and have started receiving the weekly reminders again. I find them inspiring. If you decide to check out the website I recommend going straight to the site map for easier site mobility.

Have fun on your creative journey.

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