Michael Gills

Finisterre Michael Gills

"That day we topped a hill at noontime and the land fell away in a panorama so I spun on a foot gazing on the fields of blood-red poppies that sloped down to a far-off church shining, as far as the eye could see, blooming in the sun even to the reaches of the ancient church where the Camino winded, and the three of us, mother, father and daughter, embraced on the roadside with heartfelt joy, this after the hard ride. We sipped wine and broke bread in the cloister marked by the cross of St. James and it was good, this life."

Finisterre, recounts a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in north Spain, from Puente la Reina to the ancient cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, said to house the relics of the apostle James-Iago-walked with Christ. And from there the narrative turns toward the bluffs of Finisterre, holy site of initiation, the emotional, spiritual, and physical boundary of the fourth world. Where earth ends, the place is called, and so it does.