02/03/2026
A Bit of Backstory
The Chapel of the Ruins did not begin as a project. It began as a question.
This old bear was a straight-arrow science kid once. Head down, working hard, convinced that if I understood the machinery of life well enough, meaning would eventually reveal itself. I started in biochemistry, chasing molecules and mechanisms. Then, like many before me, I stumbled into experiences that loosened the bolts holding my worldview together. Psychedelics didn’t hand me answers. They reminded me that I had been filtering the questions.
Around that time, I wrote a paper for a philosophy course with an unwieldy title about biochemistry and human communication. The heart of it was simple: if our minds are shaped by filters, then changing the filter changes the message. The professor gave me an A and a book on altered states of awareness. I took that as permission to keep asking.
Life, as it does, moved on. Careers. Responsibilities. Losses. Joys. Over time, the filters crept back in, quieter but heavier. This past year, I noticed my thoughts narrowing, circling old grooves. Not dramatic despair, just the slow gravity of negativity that pulls everything downhill if left unattended.
Then I ran across a line that stopped me cold: the thoughts we hold onto create our reality. It wasn’t new. It was obvious. That was the problem. I had forgotten to live it.
On New Year’s Eve, Paula and I chose something different. No spectacle. No escape. Just closeness, trust, and a deliberate resetting of the old bear’s inner weather with good Chapel medicine. Our bodies know each other and we snuggled close, warm physical contact as shelter against the cold. That night reminded me that healing is often quieter than we expect. Less fireworks, more warmth. Less revelation, more remembering.
The Chapel of the Ruins exists because places can hold that remembering for us.
Long before it was stone and iron and broken rails, this hillside was shaped by forces larger than any one person: gravity, ambition, extraction, time. Now it holds space for something else. Reflection. Patience. A slowing down. Not to forget history, but to see it remembered in the stones and the lesson softened by the moss.
When we talk about “medicine” here, we don’t mean miracles. We mean tools that help people step outside the default habit of self-criticism and fear, even briefly, and see themselves as part of a larger, living system again. Plants. Fungi. Stones. To feel connected. To laugh, share stories and meals. Tales of the days of the Gravity Railroad. Quiet walks. We see how the past shaped where we are, and how Nature healed with beauty. It feels good to be here.
Nothing here is about fixing anyone. It’s about softening the grip of old patterns and making room for better ones. One conversation. One shared moment. One heart at a time.
That’s the Chapel of the Ruins. Not a doctrine. Not a feudal hierarchy. Just a place where people can remember how to listen to themselves, to each other, and to the land beneath their feet.
Did the NYE medicine work? This old bear has been positive, productive, and lots more fun. And I’m a big believer in what works.
The Spirit of the Bear approves.
