A Book of Silence (13 page)

I experienced a fierce
joyful
… joyful what? … neither pride nor triumph felt like the right word. Near the end of Ursula le Guin’s
The Farthest Shore
(the third part of the
Earthsea Trilogy
) Arren, the young prince-hero, who has with an intrepid courage born of love rescued the magician Sparrowhawk, and by implication the whole of society, from destruction, wakes alone on the western shore of the island of Selidor. ‘He smiled then, a smile both sombre and joyous, knowing for the first time in his life, and alone, and unpraised and at the end of the world, victory.’ That was what I felt like, alone on An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, The Winged Isle. I felt an enormous victorious YES to the world and to myself. For a short while I was absorbed in joy. I was dancing my joy, dancing, and flowing with energy. At one point I grabbed my jacket, plunged out into the wind and the storm. It was physically impossible to stay out for more than about a minute because the wind and rain were so strong and I came back in soaked from even that brief moment; but I came in energised and laughing and exulting as well. I was both excited
and
contented. This is a rare and precious pairing. I knew, and wrote in my journal, that this would not last, but it did not matter. It was NOW. At the moment that now, and the enormous wind, felt like enough. Felt like more than enough.

And once again I am not alone. Repeatedly, in every historical period, from every imaginable terrain, in innumerable different languages and forms, people who go freely into silence come out with slightly garbled messages of intense
jouissance
, of some kind of encounter with nature, their self, their God, or some indescribable source of power.

Now look at the eight particular experiences I have described here: an intensification of both physiological and psychological sensation; disinhibition; a sense of ‘givenness’ or connection; auditory hallucinations – voice hearing of a rather particular kind; boundary confusions; an exhilarating consciousness of being at risk, in peril; ineffability and bliss.

I would not want to suggest that this was a definitive list. But even as it stands, it does seem to me that to describe these experiences in terms of ‘lack’ or ‘absence’ is simply stupid.

Frank Mulville, yet another single-handed sailor, in an article entitled ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Sailor’, wrote about an experience that seems to hold together all the elements of silence that I have been so busy separating out. Mulville got ‘blissed out’ (his term) sailing single-handed in the Caribbean, in love with his ship and with the long silences. He wanted to see her and himself from the outside, and so one calm day, although the boat was under sail, he attached himself to a long rope, let himself down into the water and floated away.

This does not feel like loss or absence to me. Driving south from Skye I knew that it was not possible for me to sustain that sort of silence for very much longer than the six weeks I had; but I also knew that it was one of the most significant things I have ever done. It was interesting, demanding, exciting, good fun and deeply joyful. It has informed my choices and my life ever since. I have been engaged trying to build those experiences into a daily and sustainable lifestyle. Skye is both a benchmark and a launch pad for much of my present life.

T
here appears to be something missing in this account of my sojourn in Skye. It is all very positive and glorious, yet we live in a society that
knows
that silence is dangerous. When I talked about my plans both before I went and since returning, the most common responses have been foreboding concern – ‘Are you sure you will be all right? Don’t you think that is rather foolhardy? Sara, do be careful.’ As a society we will do anything we can to avoid silence at every level. Silence is terrifying, unnatural and drives people mad. Silence is supposed to be very dark, very heavy.

To be honest, after I returned to Weardale I felt I had missed something – that I had not encountered fully the promised ‘dark side’ of silence. I had indeed had some depressed, angry and destabilised moments and even days, but in a sense they were not different in quality or intensity from the same sorts of days and moments that I experience anyway. In fact, they were probably fewer and milder than normal, because I did not have to deal with other people and their frustrating or inconvenient demands. These sensations, unlike the positive ones, did not feel specific to silence.

I only had one seriously frightening experience that I would interpret as directly related to silence while I was in Skye. One morning I decided that I would take a walk from Luib to Loch Slapin – from sea to sea along a well-marked track between the mountains. From one of the tourist pamphlets in the house I had learned that quite recently some Bronze Age remains had been
discovered here, evidence of the oldest inhabitation of the island, and that piqued my curiosity. It was a strange day, very still with no wind. I left the car and walked up the path, and after a couple of hundred yards it turned round a knoll and I walked into
nowhere
. It was a tight, steep-sided glen that I could not see out of. Nowhere. No one. Nothing. ‘Desolate’ suggests something sad – but at that point I had nothing to be sad about and I wasn’t, although the path was really wet and boggy and hard work. It was terribly still and beautiful – but somehow eerie. Soon I came to a little loch with reeds standing in the perfectly clear water, which reflected the hills rising sharply either side – and at first I was enchanted. I could hear, though never see, some small singing birds and I sat beside the water and listened to the silence – and then abruptly, suddenly I was ‘spooked’.