Subject: Completion From: GailRobins@aol.com Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 12:45:47 EDT

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I find it interesting that there is a conversation on the email about
completion when Stephen and I had a rich conversation about it over the
weekend.  

We went away to Monhegan Island for three days.  This is a small island 10
miles off the coast of Maine.  It is 3/4 mile wide and 1 3/4 long ---- tiny!!
But, laced with 17 miles of hiking trails that wind through pine forests,
ocean bluffs, marshlands, high headlands, pounding surf and a village of
fishermans's cottages.  There are only about 75 fulltime residents.  It takes
1 1/2 hours to get there by ferry.  The sea breeze is always cooling the salt
air.   We stayed in an inn that is 100 years old with a wide front porch lined
with rocking chairs that overlooks the harbor - we watched the sunset every
evening - rocking and sipping wine.  There are 2 general stores, 2 places to
eat, 3 inns, a church, a library, cottages, piles of lobster traps, artists
and fishermen.   Most of the cottages don't have electricity....no street
lamps, so signs, no traffic (no cars!)...We laid out under the stars at night
- without any lights to diminish their brilliance.  Many artists open their
studios for a couple of hours one or two afternoons a week.  Otherwise, there
is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no plans to make and only the present moment
that matters.  Completion.  Or is it?  

We wondered:   If, after all we had thought there was to be said has been
said,  are we complete - or are we just then ready to create "more than
complete"........and what could that be?   We saw that we largely think of
complete as a process of tidying up loose ends - we wondered what life would
look like if we lived that "complete"  wasn't complete untill everything
magnificient about each person and the days wonders had been spoken AND
something new had been created to be lived into!  WOW !  That certainly gave
us a new slant on being complete! 

We have been reading a book about relationship in a tribal African village.
The Dagara people have a ritual that a couple performs EVERY FIVE DAYS in
which they create a sacred space and then say everything there is to be said
to the other.  I can hardly imagine a life where being complete is part of the
society's practise.  What is even more astounding to me is that this is done
pubicly - not inside people's homes, in private - and life flows on around the
couple as they are doing their ritual.  

Somehow, Stephen and I got a new and fresh sense of community - neighborhood -
from this weekend where we would just step out the door and walk to the dock
or store or beach - people were smiling and chatting with each other....little
inconsequential matters.....like there are ripe raspberries on the path up
ahead, or that there were seals and whales offshore around the bend, or,
simply, wasn't dinner great last night at the inn - what did you have?  The
fleeting contacts of a neighborhood where it matters how your life is going -
maybe completion gives us the opportunity to step beyond the everyday what's
so and create the everyday what's next.

Gail

From bstuhlmu.infoscan@medimedia.com Mon Jul 27 14:31:44 1998
>From bstuhlmu.infoscan@medimedia.com  Mon Jul 27 14:31:43 1998
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