This is Your One and Only Life

One of my favourite folk singers is Susan Crowe.  One of her songs has a chorus that goes like this - "This is your one and only life, what will you do?" A favourite poet - Mary Oliver - puts it this way - "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life?". Both women capture something of the wonder of just being alive, and ask a vital question that comes out of that recognition. Their words come to mind often. So I ask myself each morning - what will you do today? It's what others call mindfulness or living with intention.
My decision to take on the 100-day challenge was brought about, at least in part, in response to that question, that reflection. Each day of the year so far, I have woken up deciding that I will make some new thing. More specifically, a new 5" x 7" leaf or forest-related something, using the fabrics that sing out to me that morning. Here are the results so far:

The leaves are cut free-form, so no two are exactly alike. And I choose the fabrics each morning according to what catches my eye, and then look for good companion fabrics, limiting myself to using the fabrics I have set aside for this project, and any I see in my scrap-basket that seem to suit. Today (the last photo) was definitely a day when I was feeling the lack of sunshine - an example of how it is that I bring who I am to what I make. As I sit and do the hand-stitching, I think about the rest of the day to come, and people I will see and what I will choose to do. So the making of this small work, is a meditation of sorts. Some would call it a prayer. And that is how I'm answering the question for now - because this IS my one and only life.