I’m searching. I’m guessing you are too. Me, I’m here at Lightning in a Bottle 2017 and I’m searching for my keys. Fortunately, not the ones that start my car, I’ve got those. No, I’m looking for those keys, those symbols, the ones to unlock the destiny ahead.

I’m drawn to The Compass, the educational peninsula. I look around and I see each of us finding our own sacred keys. My feet follow fingers fluttering across the skin of drums. I dance alone. We dance together.

Lightning in a Bottle has always been a complex entity to write about. Critiques I’ve written in the past have been dulled on the cutting room floor. Both by myself and by others.

The question of the greater good comes up. The Do LaB attracts a younger, less-experienced crowd, offering many their first taste of “conscious living.” I wrote about this phenomenon in depth in The Do LaB: A Mainline Between the Mainstream & the Underground.

Even with the stages and sun at full blast, The Compass’ seven zones were constantly overflowing with eager learners, engaging with the complex mysteries of modern living: work, relationships, activism, lifestyles.

LiB has successfully carved out its niche as the recruiting grounds of the West Coast Transformational Festival scene, even as it shirts from being identified as such.

Understandably so. The event is not necessarily infused with ritual or mythos. It’s there, but it’s not central. Opening Ceremony was a small affair, hardly amplified. This year, it seemed like education was a corollary to the gathering: a purpose applied to what started as, and still primarily is, a party.

But The Do Lab tells us that they’re growing up, looking for True North.

And so, enter The Compass, the new iteration of The Village and Temple of Consciousness. Still in its infancy, its curators and proprietors are supported with stunning architecture and production value. The Do Lab doesn’t do afterthoughts.

After last year’s flat earth debacle, LiB is ensuring a promise to its patrons that they are firmly on the side of Rational Science, that not all forms of knowing are worthy of stage time.

This addresses the scourge of conspiracy theorists that this community seems to tolerate, if not propagate. The prevalence of anti-science, anti-vaccination, anti-intellectualism, is a major limiting force for conscious events. It surely keeps our visions of the future from moving into the mainstream, out of the lunatic fringe.

So there’s no shortage of offerings, and most workshops and panels were very well attended. The main difference this year was the academic and professional credentials of the speakers.

At one moment on the compass, a peninsula spanning acres, no less than a dozen different courses are simultaneously materializing. The clank of metal at a blacksmithing demonstration, the spinning wood of a fire making class. The crackle of two different fire pits, world music education at The Crossroads stage. The Compass HQ is buzzing and mead is flowing. There’s a podcast being recorded and vendors are selling wares from Peru and beyond. At The Learning Kitchen, there’s a pickle party while people make their own crispy cukes with vinegar, turmeric, salt and more. A dance troupe practices its prayerformance, a yoga teacher checks in for her class. A keynote panel on community activism is on the MainStage at The Beacon, a stunning new structure. A space called the Grid is lit up with entrepreneurial spirit. 50 people are experience a collective sound bath, the gongs melting time and space. There’s a talk on radical honesty and a talk on minimalist lifestyles. Potions and teas are being brewed at The Witches Hut, at I.AM.LIFE and at Om Shan Tea with Ron Jon. At Nature’s Nest on Meditation Mount, it’s sunset and 100 people are listening to a Shipibo elder discuss Ayahuasca, or meditating, or swinging on swings and hoops. Fractal Marks has a lounge there too, and six people are sitting, talking on top of a purple limo. Down by the water, healer’s are doing bodywork and energy healing.

All of these things, happening simultaneously, and each in its own beautifully crafted space. A decadent buffet of opportunities, overwhelming if it weren’t so easy to drift in and out of each location.

In college, they had a program called Fiat Lux. These were a smorgasbord of compelling, accessible electives for college Freshmen. The compass is an opportunity to experience a world of flavors, even if it isn’t necessarily a chance to dive deep. It’ll give you a taste of The Universe, and leave you wanting more.

That lack of intensiveness can be seen as a strength. No doubt, the presenters are top-notch, and The Do Lab is looking what it would take to do it even bigger. I heard mention of a desire for a keynote from someone like Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Personally, I’d love to see The Do LaB flex its financial muscles to land someone like Russell Brand or Joe Rogan.

We sat down with a number of producers, teachers, and students at The Compass to get a pulse on their experience. With so much drama surrounding this new development, we heard a lot of positivity, and a strong sense of growth and appreciation. It will take time to establish The Compass as a world-class, cohesive concept. It will take more planning to create sacred space of the sort that The Temple of Consciousness achieved, especially in its years at Black Oak Canyon in Silverado.

There, you had to make a choice to enter into workshop, into learning. You had to climb the hill, and you didn’t just pop in and out. At Bradley, you’re always crossing The Compass on your way between the main stages and The Woogie, and The Beacon draws you in if you’ve seen The Do Lab stage at Coachella.

After it’s first year under the guise of The Compass, it’s clear the LiB audience is hungry to learn. It’s clear that The Do LaB is ready to teach. But are they, themselves, ready to learn?

The entire community is going through some really hard stuff right now. It’s not enough to just do cool stuff, make awesome events, teach crazy rad ideas. We have to wander into the hardest, darkest, and most challenging caverns around. Hopefully The Compass can guide us towards that truth.