Railway.

Sleepers.

Authentic.

 

The Whip’s authentic pub atmosphere is a casual and inviting place to try traditional English dishes created from local, sustainable ingredients. Bangers and Mash, Scotch Eggs, Welsh Rarebit and Sticky Toffee Pudding are just a few of the delectable offerings that have earned rave reviews and a loyal following among British expatriates and English-fare converts.

Woven into the mix are American favorites, evolving seasonally using the highest quality produce, beef and lamb, cheeses and cream from Chester and Lancaster Counties. One visit to The Whip and you’ll know why so many locals covet it and why hundreds of visitors travel miles to experience it.

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Yorkshire.

Song.

In the beginning the Earth was infinite and murky plain, separated from the sky and from the grey salt sea and smothered in a shadowy twilight. There were neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars. Yet, far away, lived the Sky-Dwellers: youthfully indifferent beings, human in form but with the feet of emus, their golden hair glittering like spiders' webs in the sunset, ageless and unageing, having existed for ever in their green, well-watered Paradise beyond the Western Clouds.

On the surface of the Earth, the only features were certain hollows which would, one day, be waterholes. There were no animals and no plants, yet clustered round the waterholes there were pulpy masses of matter: lumps of primordial soup - soundless, sightless, unbreathing, unawake and unsleeping - each containing the essence of life, or the possibility of becoming human.

Beneath the Earth's crust, however, the constellations glimmered, the Sun shone, the Moon waxed and waned, and all the forms of life lay sleeping: the scarlet of a desert-pea, the iridescence on a butterfly's wing, the twitching white whiskers of Old Man Kangaroo - dormant as seeds in the desert that must wait for a wandering shower.

On the first morning of the First Day, the Sun felt the urge to be born. (That evening the Stars and Moon would follow). The Sun burst through the surface, flooding the land with golden light, warming the hollows under which each Ancestor lay sleeping.

Unlike the Sky-dwellers, these Ancients had never been young. They were lame, exhausted greybeards with knotted limbs, and they had slept in isolation through the ages.

So it was, on this First Morning, that each drowsing Ancestor felt the Sun's warmth pressing on his eyelids, and felt his body giving birth to children. The Snake Man felt snakes slithering out of his navel. The Cockatoo Man felt feathers. The Witchetty Grub Man felt a wriggling, the Honey-ant a tickling, the Honeysuckle felt his leaves and flowers unfurling. The Bandicoot Man felt baby bandicoots seething from under his armpits. Every one of the 'living things,' each at its own separate birthplace, reached up for the light of day.

In the bottom of their hollows (now filling up with water), the Ancients shifted one leg, then another leg. They shook their shoulders and flexed their arms. They heaved their bodies upward through the mud. Their eyelids cracked open. They saw their children at play in the sunshine.

The mud fell from their thighs, like placenta from a baby. Then, like the baby's first cry, each Ancestor opened his mouth and called out 'I AM!' 'I am - Snake... Cockatoo... Honey-ant... Honeysuckle... And this first 'I am!', this primordial act of naming, was held, then and forever after, as the most secret and sacred couplet of the Ancestor's song.

Each of the Ancients (now basking in the sunlight) put his left foot forward and called out a second name. He put his right foot forward and called out a third name. He named the waterhole, the reedbeds, the gum trees - calling to right and left, calling all things into being and weaving their names into verses.

The Ancients sang their way all over the world. They sang the rivers and ranges, salt-pans and sand dunes. They hunted, ate, made love, danced, killed: wherever their tracks led they left a trail of music.

They wrapped the whole world in a web of song; and at last, when the Earth was sung, they felt tired. Again in their limbs they felt the frozen immobility of Ages. Some sank into the ground where they stood. Some crawled into caves. Some crept away to their 'Eternal Homes,' to the ancestral waterholes that bore them.

All of them went 'back in.'

Bruce Chatwin, from The Songlines 

Beauty.

Curtis, God of Harvest, Fringe Mouth, and Talking God, 1907

HOUSE MADE OF DAWN

Navajo Night Chant

In Tse'gihi

In the house made of the dawn,

In the house made of the evening twilight,

In the house made of the dark cloud,

In the house made of the he-rain,

In the house made of the dark mist,

In the house made of the she-rain,

In the house made of pollen,

In the house made of grasshoppers,

Where the dark mist curtains the doorway,

The path to which is on the rainbow,

Where the zigzag lightning stands high on top,

Where the he-rain stands high on top,

Oh, male divinity!

With your moccasins of dark cloud, come to us.

With your leggings of dark cloud, come to us.

With your shirt of dark cloud, come to us.

With your head-dress of dark cloud, come to us.

With your mind enveloped in dark cloud, come to us.

With the dark thunder above you, come to us soaring.

With the shapen cloud at your feet, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the dark cloud over your head, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the he-rain over your head, come to us soaring..

With the far darkness made of the dark mist over your head, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the she-rain over your head, come to us soaring.

With the zigzag lightning flung out on high over your head, come to us soaring.

With the rainbow hanging high over your head, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the he-rain on the ends of your wings, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the dark mist on the ends of your wings, come to us soaring.

With the far darkness made of the she-rain on the ends of your wings, come to us soaring.

With the zigzag lightning flung out on high on the ends of your wings, come to us soaring.

With the rainbow hanging high on the ends of your wings, come to us soaring.

With the near darkness made of the dark cloud, of the he-rain, of the dark mist and of the she-rain, come to us.

With the darkness of the earth, come to us.

With these I wish the foam floating on the flowing water over the roots of the great corn.

I have made your sacrifice.

I have prepared a smoke for you.

My feet restore for me.

My limbs restore for me.

My body restore for me.

Mt mind restore for me.

My voice restore for me.

Today, take out your spell for me.

Today, take away your spell for me.

Away from me you have taken it.

Far off from me, it is taken.

Far off you have done it.

Happily I recover.

Happily my interior becomes cool.

Happily my eyes regain their power.

Happily my head becomes cool.

Happily my limbs regain their power.

Happily I hear again.

Happily for me is taken off.

Happily I walk.

Impervious to pain, I walk.

Feeling light within, I walk.

With lively feelings, I walk.

Happily abundant dark clouds I desire.

Happily abundant dark mists I desire.

Happily abundant passing showers I desire.

Happily an abundance of vegetation I desire.

Happily an abundance of pollen I desire.

Happily abundant dew I desire.

Happily may fair white corn, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

Happily may fair yellow corn, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

Happily may fair blue corn, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

Happily may fair plants of all kinds, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

Happily may fair goods of all kinds, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

Happily may fair jewels of all kinds, to the ends of the earth, come with you.

With these before you, happily may they come with you.

With these behind you, happily may they come with you.

With these below you, happily may they come with you.

With these abovee you, happily may they come with you.

With these all around you, happily may they come with you.

Thus happily you accomplish your tasks.

Happily the old men will regard you.

Happily the old women will regard you.

Happily the young men will regard you.

Happily the young women will regard you.

Happily the boys will regard you.

Happily the girls will regard you.

Happily the children will regard you.

Happily the chiefs will regard you.

Happily, as they scatter in different directions, they will regard you.

Happily, as they approach their homes, they will regard you.

Happily may their roads back home be on the trail of pollen.

Happily may they all get back.

In beauty I walk.

With beauty before me, I walk.

With beauty behind me, I walk.

With beauty below me, I walk.

With beauty above me, I walk.

With beauty all around me, I walk.

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty.

Thank You, Jessica.

John Denver, "Windsong"

The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth. 

The wind is the hand of our father the sky.
The wind watches over our struggles and pleasures.
The wind is the goddess who first learned to fly.

The wind is the bearer of bad and good tidings, 

The weaver of darkness, the bringer of dawn.
The wind gives the rain, then builds us a rainbow, 

The wind is the singer who sang the first song.

The wind is a twister of anger and warning, 

The wind brings the fragrance of freshly mown hay.

The wind is a racer, a wild stallion running 

And the sweet taste of love on a slow summer's day.

The wind knows the songs of cities and canyons, 

The thunder of mountains, the roar of the sea.
The wind is the taker and giver of mornings, 

The wind is the symbol of all that is free.

So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers, 

Follow her summons when she calls again.
In your heart and your spirit, let the breezes surround you.
Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind.

Passing.

A Sufi manual, the Kashf-al-Mahjub, says that towards the end of his journey, the dervish becomes the Way, not the wayfarer; a place over which something is passing, not a traveller following his own free will.

Bruce Chatwin

Search.

For a naturalist, traveling into unfamiliar territory is like turning a kaleidoscope ninety degrees. Suddenly, the colors and pieces of glass find a fresh arrangement. The light shifts, and you enter a new landscape in search of the order you know to be there.

Terry Tempest Williams

Calling.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,

Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,

Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the binding sunsets blazon,

Black Canyons where the rapids rip and roar?

Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,

Search the Vastness for a something you have lost?

Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;

Hear the Challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sage-brush desolation,

The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?

Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of creation,

And learned to know the desert's little ways?

Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges,

Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through an through?

Have you chummed up with the messa? Do you know its moods and changes?

Then listen to the Wild - it's calling you.

Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?

(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)

Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,

Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?

Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,

Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?

And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?

Then hearken to the Wild - it's wanting you.

Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, groveled down, yet grasped at glory,

Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?

"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,

Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?

Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?

(You'll never hear it in the family pew.)

The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things -

Then listen to the Wild - it's calling you.

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,

They have soaked you in convention through and through;

They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching -

But can't you hear the Wild? - it's calling you.

Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling ... Let us go.

Robert Service

Leveller.

Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians, with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds, project onto the next world the journeys they failed to make in this one.  

As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less aggressive than sedentary ones.  There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a "leveller" on which the "fit" survive and stragglers fall by the wayside.  The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The "dictators" of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the "gentlemen of the road."

Bruce Chatwin