A tall, heavy-set man with shaggy blond hair and straight-cropped bangs stands in the middle of an empty gravel parking lot. He looks around aimlessly, hands shoved in his pockets.

When he sees a car pulling up, he turns, hands still stuffed in pockets, and hurries over to a small building with a satellite on the roof and a serape covering the door.

"Someone's here," he says into the darkened building.

New Times photo illustration/Photo by Andrew Pielage

Andrew Pielage

First, the Reverend Anne Zapf cuts the tops of peyote buttons, then dries them, and measures out 20 grams for the final gruel-type mixture church members imbibe.

A minute later, a small, wiry man wearing tight, black yoga pants, a fanny pack, and a baseball cap pulled over a graying ponytail appears in the doorway and moves across the lot with a mountain goat's spring in his step.

"Hello, I'm Matthew," he says, a grin touching the corners of his mouth. "Welcome to Peyote Way."

This is Matthew Kent, one of the two primary spiritual leaders of Peyote Way Church of God near Safford. On this afternoon, "Rabbi" Kent has just finished an interview with two filmmakers from California who are working on a documentary about his church. The blond man wandering around the property, he says, is preparing for one of the church's "spirit walks."

In the distance, the peak of Mount Graham, a Western Apache holy site, is dusted with snow.

Continued here:

A Remote Arizona Church Offers Peyote-Induced Spiritual Journeys