In September 2017, I visited friends in the O Salnésregion of Galicia, a year after walking the Camino Portugues. Alfonso and Debee Cherene had begun working with residents of the village of Mouzos, opening the Chapel of San Pedro to passing pilgrims. On the last day of my visit we drove there. 

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Close now to places I remember; a glimpse of willows, the Puente Santa Maria. A year, gone in a flash, like the swallows

skimming the road ahead. Soon they’ll leave, towing the dreams of summer south. They know what we don’t, and need – the rhythm of back and forth, birthing new hope. Something novel to slow the sand-glass flow.

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Again, the Celtic quandary of souls riven by a love of home and the need to wander. Trying to stretch out time by splicing in

fresh footage.

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Sometimes it feels like we’ve been cast out into the night and asked to find our way home again, with only star fields to guide

us, or whispered prayers borne on the wind, flayed from the words of wild men wandering in coarse clothing, fed on honey cake and desert silence, leaving a crumb here and there. 

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But as we drive into Pontearnelas, there’s a gap in the clouds and a trick of the light. Slanted sunbeams falling on three

pilgrims making their way across a sigh of bridge. For a moment, everything slows and merges into one, as if this place passes through them, rather than they through it. 

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