Can you hear the silence?

Can you hear the silence?

It took Waldo just a couple of hours to assemble the chair. It really is very comfortable. Over the past week we have been gradually moving my books down to the AcropoLiz. At least, Waldo has done the hard work of carrying them down the steps from the mezzanine floor, down the steps to the kitchen, down the steps from the kitchen patio, turn and then down the final steps along the end of the oleander hedge and over the rough cobbled path to what is now my office. I have had an enjoyable time acquainting myself with all my long lost friends, sorting them and organising them on shelves in some semblance of order.

When we moved a container load of our belongings out her, some 8 years ago, I know that 1826 books were brought out. I know that because they had to be counted for insurance purposes! Thanks to Amazon and weighty suitcases, I have added to that number considerably and our library must now contain some 2,300 books. I would estimate that I have read some 80% of them, skim read the remainder with the exception of about 60 books that are waiting to be read. On average I read about 3 books every two weeks; but when I am reading in preparation for writing an academic paper, journal article or checking students' work I may push this up to 6 books per week.

Waldo's part of the library accounts for some 200 books on all aspects of motor sport and care as well as a growing number of autobiographies and biographies of people associated with motor sport, political leadership and religious leadership. I too enjoy biographies and autobiographies but mainly of women whose lives have been a challenge, one of achievement, unusual, involve travel or just simply wild. Jehan Sadat used her husband's power and position to develop co-operative workshops for women in rural Egypt and to establish proper medical clinics so that every women in Egypt, even if she couldn't avoid the tradition of cliterectomies, at least they would be performed in humane, medical conditions. Naawal Al Sadawi a committed feminist, one of the founders of the Arab Women's League and whose wise writings taught me that those women who wear the veil may actually have more freedom and equality than western women who are not aware of the psychological and cultural veils that oppress them. Gertrude Bell, allie of Lawrence of Arabia, the only woman to attend the Cairo conference in 1921, friend and adviser to Winston Churchill and King Faisal of Iraq and major contributor to the British 'lines in the sand'. Waris Dirie, born a Somalian nomad, survived infection as a consequence of brutal genital mutilation with a rusty, blunt blade to become a Pirelli calendar girl and ultimately a United Nations Special Ambassador. The amazing Catalina de Erauso who, in the early 17th Century was given to a San Sebastian convent, as were all daughters of middle class Basque girls, to be educated until a suitable husband could be found for her. Wanting more from life Cataline dressed as a boy to escape her religious prison, fled Peru and Chile where she, still dressed as a boy, joined the Spanish army where she unknowingly killed her own brother in a dual, fled the army and lived the rest of her life by her wits, balancing heroic behaviour of the Robin Hood type and sheer villainy when pushed to survive the sordid life. Any woman, intent on negotiating peace in Northern Ireland, who can walk into a room to meet Martin McGuinness for the first time, take off her wig and throw it on the table and in her opening sentence call him 'Babes' had to be the prime example of a woman of confidence and Mo Mowlam must be an inspiration to women everywhere.

When not reading about women's lives I read about their travel adventures and particularly love the tales of the intrepid Victorian lady explorers. Jane Digby el Mesrab travelled from her home in Norfolk and travelled through Europe having affairs with King Ludwig or Bavaria and his son Otto before moving on to the dessert where she met, fell in love and married Sheik Medhuil el Masrab in Syria where she lived in a tent, adopted Bedouin clothes and customs, earning the respect of the people she came to know and love. Isabella Bird left Britain in 1872 to travel to Australia, Hawaii and Colorado, USA. She eventually explored her way to the Rocky Mountains where she spent years associating with a notorious character Jim Nugent, known as 'Rocky Mountain Jim'.  Lady Hester Stanhope en route to Cairo was shipwrecked near Rhodes where, unable to obtain western clothes and refusing to wear a veil she dressed in male Turkish attire to continue her journey and on to Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Somewhere between Damascus, Jerusalem and Palmyra she changed her clothes to wear that of a Bedouin and continued to travel the dessert with her caravan of 22 camels to carry her baggage. She ended her life living with her companion in a series of desolate monasteries until her death in 1839.

Otherwise my more academic reading tends to focus upon feminist sociology, female entrepreneurship and philosophy. I am particularly fascinated how power is acquired, used and abused. Whilst I am not particularly committed to any particular religious belief, I read quite a bit about different world religions because they are so powerful in people's lives for inner peace and calm as well as stimulating passions about difference that end up in violence and wars. No matter how much I read, I cannot equate the teachings of religious people such as Jesus Christ, Mohamed, Buddha and the various Hindu Gods and those of other religions with the acts of violence committed in the name of the religion they have founded.

More recently I have become interested in Quakerism, not least because ones religious beliefs and personal spiritual journey are private. Quaker have no creed but have a shared belief that there is something of 'God' (whoever, however that may be defined) in everyone, all people are equal, everyone has access to 'the light' and it does not require a minister or priest to act as intermediary, peace is the way forward and violence is not acceptable, and finally that ones spiritual and personal principles are empty unless converted into action and the way each person lives their life. It is this commitment to action, to lobbying, to charitable work, to influencing for the better that attracts me to Quakers. Quakers really have more influence than their numbers suggest and it is not surprising that organisations such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Oxfam and the Ecumenical Observers group have all been established with Quaker involvement. My library of Quaker history, Quaker testimonies, Quaker experience and Quaker spirituality already extends to some 100 books, most of which I have read.

Silence is a big part of Quaker worship and I have been wonder struck by its power. In the intimacy of silence, shared with anything between 5 to 200 people, I have been amazed how, when someone ventures forth to minister that it is on a topic I am wrestling with. How the energy, the thoughts, the power seeps through from individual to individual beats me, but I no longer question it, just accept it as something extraordinary to experience. Silence has always been an important part of my life. I cannot study to background music, I cannot think deeply when distracted by noise, I love the inspiration of that rare envelope of silence.

Now that I am in the AcropoLiz I have more than as much silence that can be expected in modern life. At the moment, as I type, I can hear absolutely nothing. Over the past three hours I have been aware of just a few things: a single distant motorcar, a scooter minus exhaust pipe, the cry of one of our birds of prey calling to his partner, the chirp of a small bird, the drone of a large insect that came inside the office buzzed around and buzzed off again, and the rest is pure silence. It envelopes me like a great comfort blanket. It transports me to another dimension. In the silence I can be me to think, reflect, think deeper, critically reflect, be creative and live the adventures in my head. It is the ultimate freedom.