"I really don't know how long it took me to walk there. When I am in a foreign city, time tends to either stand still, or it ceases to exist. Everything is new. I could have been walking for ten minutes or ten hours. But I got there. It is a small mountain, or a high hill, covered with heath, which is to say grass and bushes. There are very few trees outside of Edinburgh since they were all cut down over the centuries. I remember how strong the wind, rather cold, more like April in Vancouver than June. But this was not Vancouver, it was Scotland, the country of my ancestry.
"There were jackdaws flying around and cawing and playing with each other. A jackdaw is a kind of a smallish crow, with dark gray plumage and white eyes. Rather creepy looking. And also there were skylarks. Till then, I had only known skylarks from my readings of English and French literature, and as I heard them singing, I could tell why they had become such birds of legend. As I took the road climbing up Arthur's Seat, a skylark would ascend into the air, singing such a piercingly sweet song, and then it would plummet down almost to the ground, before resuming its ascent to the heavens. And so the skylarks gave me hope and strength as I climbed the hill, knowing that I was soon to meet God again.
"I cannot remember whether or not I was exhausted from the climb, only that when I reached the peak, there was a stone cradle. There were some loose rocks lying around. I used twelve to build a small cairn. Then I lay in the stone cradle, and as the wild wind swept over me so I entered into my new baptism....
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