This season, when you drive up the dusty road and arrive at the Wilbur gate - of course, dutifully closing it behind you so the cows cannot enter - your senses will be immediately awoken. What will you feel, hear, see and smell? A sense of ease, the sound of a tumbling stream, grasses and trees dancing in a warm breeze, the pungent trace of sulphur in the air? Or is it a deeper arrival, steeped in meaning from countless visits, many stories made and memories kept? Do you still recollect your first visits here?
We’d like to believe that this valley remembers. Waters, carrying the memory of geologic time deep beneath the earth, holding us all equally through the years; hills holding stories of exploitation and also of reverent care, still smiling proudly through their scars: a valley that has hosted so very many across the ages.
We invite you to be a guest not of us, but with us, hosted by this generous place that takes its own time and slows all of us down in the process. This corner of calm in a wearying world asks only for stillness and simplicity, for presence over presentation. We’d like to imagine that it remembers us in the same manner as we remember it - and if we listen carefully, we can hear it welcome us back when we return. As co-hosts, we invite you to re-join us for a brief measure of time, to have it feel timeless.
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