The Power Animals Of Scotland, Part Three

After lunch, I walk to the north beach By Myself. I pass through the picturesque ruins of a nunnery, which the plaque says was founded in 1200 by Reginald of Something. Its first prioress was his sister, "Beatrice (or Bethoc)". I look up from reading this to see a sparrow prone on the gravel path, twitching and shivering. Oh no, I think. It is fatally injured somehow. It is having a death convulsion. Then another one flits down and starts convulsing in the sunlight, too. Oh, I think. A dust bath. It is windier now as I climb the headland, and the sheep are mostly lying down, facing into it, the lambs behind their mothers, using their flanks as a windbreak.

Walking along the beach, which is an expanse of sculpted pink and green granite curves, I consider whether she might be possessed. What would the early Christians think? But the possessed are supposed to be full of anger, I think, and she is mostly full of tears. That night I skim two books from the breakfast room downstairs, a history of St. Columba and a history of Glasgow. The history of the saint casts much doubt on the theory that he was being punished for anything, because he seems to have gone back and forth and where he pleased. But I like the fact that he was first christened Crimthan, "The Fox", and only later given the name "Columcille"--dove of the cell, pidgeon of the church. I like the fact that the course his life doesn't seem to have reconciled these two names.

Later I dream that my mother has turned into a dog with a semi-human face, and is lunging up from a pit or tunnel toward me, grinning and barking and slavering, full of force. I am appalled and frightened and feel powerless to stop this almost joyful attack until gradually I realize, resignedly, that I will have to turn into a dog too, to counter her, though I am afraid of this. I do--I change--and am full of power and ease, and chase her back down the hole. It is like having a body again, and in the dream it is a great relief, but I wake worried and scared about my own mortality.