The big thing happening these days is we’re going to a potlatch next week. A potlatch is a ceremony and celebration held by First Nation’s on the West Coast. It’s also their form of government, which includes an economic system based on giving. It’s a way of redistributing wealth among bands and families.

Our potlatch is a celebration for the building of the Big House on the commune. It will be used by Dr Yamamoto for his psilocybin meditations. It will also be used for gatherings and ceremonies. The neighboring First Nations are building it, and gifting it to us at the time of the Potlatch. The commune is on their land, and I think this is their way of showing us we’re part of their community.

None of us from the commune have ever been to a Potlatch, and as the day approaches, Raven’s getting hammered with questions.

‘What is it? Is it just a huge party?’ Jason asks.

‘In some ways,’ Raven said. ‘But it’s more like a gathering. There’s meaning in it too’.

‘Do you guy’s summon your spirit animals?’ Jason continued.

‘Oh yeah,' Raven replied, knowing Jason was completely hung up on the Twilight movies, and probably thinking a werewolf might show up. ‘Some even transform into their spirit animal’.

‘Fuck me,’ Jason replied. ‘Right along this coast is where all those werewolves live’.

‘Yes it is,’ Raven agreed, saying nothing to alleviate Jason’s fear.’Lot’s of wolves out this way’.

‘Fuck me,’ Jason replied.

‘What about the ceremonies?’ I asked. ‘Are you planning any ceremonies other than the gifting of the Big House’?

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‘We are. As a matter of fact, I’ve been asked to invite you guys to participate in a kind of coming of age ceremony. Would you be interested in joining’?

‘What is it exactly,’ I asked.

‘Well, I guess you could say it’s our version of Doc’s meditations. For you, it would be like a coming of age to our ways, I guess you could say. Understanding your place in nature and coming back from the experience with a greater sense of responsibility and connection to Mother Earth and the universe’.

‘Are we going to be on ‘shrooms’ Bubba asked.

‘Ayahuasca’.

‘Ayahuasca? Nice’.

‘Yeah,’ Danny scored some and is saving it for the ceremony’.

‘I’m in,’ Bubba says.

‘Will I turn into a werewolf?’Jason asks.

‘Maybe. Maybe you’ll turn into a werewolf.’

‘Well, if I turn into a werewolf I’m in,’ Jason replied.

Andy agreed to participate as well, because he lets his imagination run as wild as Jason does. This is exactly the kind of dumbass thing he thinks he knows everything about. He has a theory werewolves don’t transform the way they did in the movie. ‘I suppose I would be willing to become a werewolf in the interest of science,’ he said.

Shaking his head in wonder, Raven looked over at me. ‘What about you’?

‘Of course I will,’ I said. ‘I’d be honored’.

‘Cool’.

Another thing that happened today, is Leita told me she told Doc about us being from the future. I suppose that was inevitable, She’s spending a lot of time with him. She said at first Doc simply nodded in acknowledgement when she told him, as is his way. He takes everything at face value and rolls with it. He doesn’t judge. She said she went on for about an hour, telling him about the transcendence, singularity, and life in the future, before he even zeroed in on the fact she was telling the truth. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Are you really from the future’? Anyway, Doc’s up to speed and full of questions, especially about transcendence, which is something he’s been chasing all his life.