Jo Milne, 5 Gates, Hostafrancs, Spain, October, 2025

Walk three hundred steps from your door, past the sign that says stop and cross the road. Gate 1.
Continue, for at least another couple of hundred steps. The terrain is uneven, stones litter the way, cracks, puddles of unknown substances of a murky brown colour. A crossroads, I always take the left, the path bends, and there’s a slight incline. Upwards, in a busy silence.Arrive at Gate 2. The path is straight, a sense of looking over the horizon, it is unknown what comes. The sky dominates all below, a blue grey, neither warm nor cold.
Gate 3. Following the path downwards, the wind whips gently, a cool caress. Things scutter in the undergrowth and worms slither slowly across the brown sludge that sticks to ones feet. A pungent sense of growth, mixed with strange man-made perfumes that have a hint of sweet evil.
Gate 4. The road winds right and then left until it takes a long straight. Strange smells accumulate, milk, pungent chemical soap, shit, blossom, a cocktail of life and death.
Gate 5. Continue a few steps before turning right at the crossroads, follow the road round, past the pungent odours of the large grey building, down the slope until veering to the left you stop and you are home.

Sarah Bild, 5 Gates, Montreal, Canada October, 2025

Turn right out of your house and walk 232 paces. Take another right and walk 242 paces to arrive at GATE 1: a long wall.
Follow a sort of staircase-like path for 173 paces to arrive at GATE 2: the entrance to the Champ des possibles.
Continue along a fence along the railroad tracks for 100 paces and take a soft right for another 70 paces to Gate 3: toward a little hillock in the middle of the Champ.
From the hillock, follow the path for 130 paces to Gate 4: through a brush of sumac bushes (fiery and magnificent in the fall) towards a stand of 3 majestic poplars.
At Gate 4, continue towards the office tower and turn right at the sumac for 80 paces towards Gate 5, to exit the Champ.

Anna Walker, 5 Gates, Buckinghamshire, UK, October, 2025

Walk 4 steps from your front door. Pause: Gate 1
What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? How do you feel? What thoughts are flashing through your mind? How did you leave your house? What clothes are you wearing? What is the weather like?
Make a right and walk for 10 minutes in one direction.
I walk a meandering path that curves to the right then the left. I walk at a medium pace, not too slow, not too fast. I witness my thoughts. Notice the birds, their numbers, their songs. I follow the clouds. The plane trails against a blue sky. When I am not listening outwards I  notice the noticing. I become more than my body, more than walking.
After 10 minutes, make another right, continuing to notice. Walk for 5 minutes. Pause: Gate 2.
I walk across a railway bridge. I cross the road and pause at the second gate, turning my body to the left before passing through the gate.
Make a left through the gate, then walk for 10 minutes. Pause: Gate 3.
I walk down a gentle slope to gate 3. To my left is a stream. I wait, I listen.
Make a right and walk for 5 minutes. Pause: Gate 4.
A new pathway of flattened grass, dry and springy, to avoid the muddy walked pathway that runs parallel. The view is vast, and as I gaze to the horizon and the setting sun, the field curves. I imagine I am seeing the curve of the earth.
Make a left and pass through the gate, walk diagonally to the right for 5 minutes. Oak tree stands tall beyond gate 5.
I walk towards Oak tree, my friend. The place where I sit no matter the weather.
Pause: Gate 5. Listen; notice, ponder, reflect.