I think of a professional athlete - a runner, a sprinter - wedged against the starting block, rubber soles gripping rubber track, fingers ritualistically - superstitiously - aligned like the pool stick midsummer sunrise your best destiny greeting bullseye handshake along the yellow line. How heart rate takes a head start. How listening transcends the ears and becomes an entire body experience. That explosive emptiness, where moving and not moving morph, the moment before...everything.
Pregnant poised potential. This is Chaos.
It is shocking sometimes how powerful we really are. We truly do create our lives. If a week ago I was contemplating Chaos, questioning my systems and dropping my identities, well, Thank You Universe, today I am immersed in it. You see, I have decided to move on from touring with STOMP, place my feet on the ground and claim earth as home. Overnite all my systems of self-definition have dissolved. I am completely unsure of who I am, where I live, what I'm doing, and in that Not Knowing, how all is possible. A rebirth transformation returning, powerfully and consciously created.
Of course I will miss my daily STOMP hyjinx: hot springs in San Francisco, kite flying in Alaska, bar fights in Pittsburgh, dropping pants in our Nation's Capitol. I will miss finding the "sweet spot" on Gerber Baby Food lids and the way, after over 500 performances, I learned how to take exhaustion, anger, depression, and pain, and make each one, in their honest expression, my best show ever. I will miss every nite lying on my back at the end of the show, chest heaving, lights coming up, audience exploding into standing ovation, thinking the thought that never once in 2 years missed a cue; "I'm in STOMP... This is my life." I walk away maintaining that STOMP truly is the best gig in show business - this small town girl's dream come true. And a phrase commonly spoken within the company, sometimes a threat, has now become a reassurance: "you can never leave the family". I see the truth of it all, in my heart and in my art: I will forever be a STOMPer.
So in Los Angeles now, filming a spot in a national Coca-Cola commercial, the Universe seems to be encouraging my journey into the unknown. It dawns on me that the identities I am dropping by leaving the road have much larger implications than I had originally envisioned. You see, now that I can not use tour life as an excuse as to why I "can not" be in a relationship, have deep friendships or feel like a member of this world, I may just have to move beyond my most prized identity, the one I have been using since childhood: Tonya Kay, the Alone and Utterly Misunderstood. And if I do not substitute a system for a system, if I do not create other excuses, this moment in my life may very well be THE opportunity to discover infinite potential - to powerfully Not Know and in that, be anything.
Prepared and poised at the starting line, actively alert and ready for anything. At the sound of the gun, I will leap forth and become. But for now, within Chaos, I could be anyone.
Los Angeles, CA
Return to Chaos
Honest Expression
Return to Chaos
Honest Expression
April 28, 2004
Huntington Beach, CA
Dark Moon
Claim, Fill, Overflow
Dark Moon
Claim, Fill, Overflow
April 20, 2004
space is all we've got. specifically in the dimensions of our very own form. our bodies: dense space. everyone's got some.
funny how so many people try to take up less than their share of space, yet me - i'm butsin out all the time.
funny how so many people try to take up less than their share of space, yet me - i'm butsin out all the time.
Los Angeles, CA
Return to Chaos:
The Everything That Isn't
Return to Chaos:
The Everything That Isn't
April 18, 2004
I've been thinking a lot about Chaos again. A contradiction within itself, this referring to the unnamable. To even entertain the concept one must unlearn how to think. Confusion therefore is once closer to Chaos. When my brain feels like eruption bang dynamite coo coo haywire anarchy, I am only getting warm.
Chaos, that green algae swamp slime from where all form emerges - the nothing we are made up of, the everything that isn't. The more I contemplate Chaos and the more confused I get, the harsher contrast that swimming drowning enigma is to everyday order. Our homes, our bodies, our language, our beliefs - all systems created through entropy to produce form from Chaos. These rules allow us to exist. These rules are existence.
Communication systems. Nervous systems. Belief systems. Solar systems. Let us see life for what it is: a self created set of systems we use for definition, the epitome of which, the most solid manifestation of, indeed the height of outward growth, is the human Ego. No longer enough to simply be separate from Chaos, life had to realize its separateness: I am not you. Which is of course, true. And not true. After all, there is only one building block from which you or Sea Monkies are constructed from and that is swamp slime.
Could it be that all this struggle to fulfill our human destiny through complete separation is nothing more than an aggressive attempt to answer the unanswerable, slow dance with the untouchable, create order from Chaos so as to not seem overwhelmed by our confusion over exactly what we are?
Human evolution is what we do and looks like this:
Emerge from Chaos (wave/particle, Big Bang, Let There Be Light).
Journey from Wholeness (umbilical chord severs, lungs take air, starting gun fires).
Solidify Identity ("I am dancer, raw foodist, pagan...human").
But what then, my friends? What then when our Egos finally develop enough to see these identities, definitions and all this separation for the self created systems they are - no longer serving our evolution but suddenly limiting our infinite potential, which is Wholeness...Tao...Chaos.
I am 27, very aware and going through a quarter-life crisis. I have forgotten who I am, what is beauty, why life. Exposing my systems, I am choosing not to replace them in an attempt to know freedom, continue evolving and return to Chaos. I am learning how to unthink in order to even contemplate this concept and am in a constant state of confusion. I am only getting warm.
Maybe snails are warmer.
Chaos, that green algae swamp slime from where all form emerges - the nothing we are made up of, the everything that isn't. The more I contemplate Chaos and the more confused I get, the harsher contrast that swimming drowning enigma is to everyday order. Our homes, our bodies, our language, our beliefs - all systems created through entropy to produce form from Chaos. These rules allow us to exist. These rules are existence.
Communication systems. Nervous systems. Belief systems. Solar systems. Let us see life for what it is: a self created set of systems we use for definition, the epitome of which, the most solid manifestation of, indeed the height of outward growth, is the human Ego. No longer enough to simply be separate from Chaos, life had to realize its separateness: I am not you. Which is of course, true. And not true. After all, there is only one building block from which you or Sea Monkies are constructed from and that is swamp slime.
Could it be that all this struggle to fulfill our human destiny through complete separation is nothing more than an aggressive attempt to answer the unanswerable, slow dance with the untouchable, create order from Chaos so as to not seem overwhelmed by our confusion over exactly what we are?
Human evolution is what we do and looks like this:
Emerge from Chaos (wave/particle, Big Bang, Let There Be Light).
Journey from Wholeness (umbilical chord severs, lungs take air, starting gun fires).
Solidify Identity ("I am dancer, raw foodist, pagan...human").
But what then, my friends? What then when our Egos finally develop enough to see these identities, definitions and all this separation for the self created systems they are - no longer serving our evolution but suddenly limiting our infinite potential, which is Wholeness...Tao...Chaos.
I am 27, very aware and going through a quarter-life crisis. I have forgotten who I am, what is beauty, why life. Exposing my systems, I am choosing not to replace them in an attempt to know freedom, continue evolving and return to Chaos. I am learning how to unthink in order to even contemplate this concept and am in a constant state of confusion. I am only getting warm.
Maybe snails are warmer.
Spring Cleanse Finale
Full
Full
April 07, 2004
It's a rock. It's a big rock hangin out in the sky that I have imbued with such strong symbolism that I feel something for it. I feel a connection with it.
When I say "full" with regards to this rock, I do not mean gas tank wine glass or the way your momma felt 20 minutes before she went into labor kinda full, though those are certainly a few of the symbols I would choose to imbue. No, when I say "full" with regards to this rock, I mean like when sunlight hits that naked surface and from this particular position on Earth, I can see half of the sphere lit up like the end of a neath death tunnel. And from here I can see there isn't much to it. It's a rock. Such mystery in simplicity.
Children function in Alpha brain waves almost exclusively until they are 9 or so, brain waves adults achieve through meditation, trance, creativity, falling asleep, or lucid dreaming. The child can not choose a brain wave pattern they haven't developed yet, so please don't dismiss imaginary friends. But I, the developed adult functioning waking hours mostly in productive Beta, have the choice to slow down. I can consciously, with practice, literally decelerate to Alpha and see this
path worn by deer, narrow and low, stand out against the ground (I follow),
fish making sounds in the lake over the hill, another insect wife wails (I listen),
songs being softly sung over the water by a voice sparkling with emotion (mine) -
eyes adjusting,
brain waves slowing,
vision shaping according to the light reflected off a
big rock hangin out in the sky.
Cleansing is like taking off your clothes - from the inside. In seven days I slept 60 hours, lost 7 lbs, and reduced overall inflammation dramatically. I wrote 33 pages in my journal, blogged 7 entries online, and had at least one fully lucid dream every nite. I doubted, I persisted, I yielded, I hoped, I thought I was going to crack for 2 entire days. But the layers came off and I saw myself naked, devoid of all the identities I create. I am bones I am tendons, I am blood I am brain waves, I am empty and clean and simple.
And when I say "full" with regards to how I feel now, I mean like the warm April moon, full of mystery.
When I say "full" with regards to this rock, I do not mean gas tank wine glass or the way your momma felt 20 minutes before she went into labor kinda full, though those are certainly a few of the symbols I would choose to imbue. No, when I say "full" with regards to this rock, I mean like when sunlight hits that naked surface and from this particular position on Earth, I can see half of the sphere lit up like the end of a neath death tunnel. And from here I can see there isn't much to it. It's a rock. Such mystery in simplicity.
Children function in Alpha brain waves almost exclusively until they are 9 or so, brain waves adults achieve through meditation, trance, creativity, falling asleep, or lucid dreaming. The child can not choose a brain wave pattern they haven't developed yet, so please don't dismiss imaginary friends. But I, the developed adult functioning waking hours mostly in productive Beta, have the choice to slow down. I can consciously, with practice, literally decelerate to Alpha and see this
path worn by deer, narrow and low, stand out against the ground (I follow),
fish making sounds in the lake over the hill, another insect wife wails (I listen),
songs being softly sung over the water by a voice sparkling with emotion (mine) -
eyes adjusting,
brain waves slowing,
vision shaping according to the light reflected off a
big rock hangin out in the sky.
Cleansing is like taking off your clothes - from the inside. In seven days I slept 60 hours, lost 7 lbs, and reduced overall inflammation dramatically. I wrote 33 pages in my journal, blogged 7 entries online, and had at least one fully lucid dream every nite. I doubted, I persisted, I yielded, I hoped, I thought I was going to crack for 2 entire days. But the layers came off and I saw myself naked, devoid of all the identities I create. I am bones I am tendons, I am blood I am brain waves, I am empty and clean and simple.
And when I say "full" with regards to how I feel now, I mean like the warm April moon, full of mystery.
Spring Cleanse
Day 7
Youth's Secret
Day 7
Youth's Secret
April 05, 2004
Like a child was I
watching afternoon drapes take wind.
Naps couldn't sleep me
in fact, I preferred to play with myself.
I knew it then life was special
so was I - the child knows.
Not once considering that afternoon might have an end
or that feeling infrequently again.
What is it as I age that lets time fatal in?
The rules unlearned as perchance I sleep and
children nap afternoons forever.
I grow younger still and ever younger
when I rest the eyes for dream.
Sleep this reality.
watching afternoon drapes take wind.
Naps couldn't sleep me
in fact, I preferred to play with myself.
I knew it then life was special
so was I - the child knows.
Not once considering that afternoon might have an end
or that feeling infrequently again.
What is it as I age that lets time fatal in?
The rules unlearned as perchance I sleep and
children nap afternoons forever.
I grow younger still and ever younger
when I rest the eyes for dream.
Sleep this reality.
Spring Cleanse
Day 6
Day 6
April 04, 2004
Ooh, I did the unspeakable today and learned a big lesson! Feeling fantabulous this morning, like the little girl with only time forever and ever, doing whatever feels good until it isn't interesting any more. I went about my still super sensitive cleansing existence, noticing how connected I felt (without emotional involvement) to everything around me: how I was amazingly like the red cotton dress I slid on, how I bounced buoyantly like the ribbons I tied, how deeply alike I was to the music I lifted voice to (again, all without caring).
Here's where tightrope got wiggly: so pleased with timing that I could make my best Michigan girlfriend, Jennifer's, wedding today and how momentous it felt to be in the company of hundred of guests all wanting to make conversation, in the center of a royal reception banquet, in the embrace of so many alive and celebratory people (quite a difference from the reclusive cleansing state I have been in for the previous 5 days) that I needed to ground just to be present. On a normal diet, I may not have even noticed. But normal is certainly not where I was.
A sip of the toasting champagne. Literally 2 cherrie tomatoes, four cucumber slices, and two pepper slices. 10 candied almonds and 2 packs sugarless gum. That's what it took for me to be there today. I am not proud nor ashamed of the deviation. I just want to learn the lessons it has to teach. And they are these: you do not deviate from a fast with refined sugar or chemicals for the system is sensitive and painful indigestion is assured (sorry, bod!). As well, if sugar and chemicals are that invasive during a cleanse, (I'm talking immediate anarchy, people), then they are invasive always, may I not return to the "normal" diet which does not notice. Finally, I realized that cleansing is an extreme state we utilize to speed up detoxification, recovery and growth, but true health lies in what we consistently do afterwards - the diet, the rest, the exercise, the self-expression we can maintain day to day. And if it has to be "not ideal" (a difficult one for me) in order to be maintainable, well "not ideal" is then just might be healthier over the long run.
Do everything you can do consistently, and continually implement gentle improvements.
Here's where tightrope got wiggly: so pleased with timing that I could make my best Michigan girlfriend, Jennifer's, wedding today and how momentous it felt to be in the company of hundred of guests all wanting to make conversation, in the center of a royal reception banquet, in the embrace of so many alive and celebratory people (quite a difference from the reclusive cleansing state I have been in for the previous 5 days) that I needed to ground just to be present. On a normal diet, I may not have even noticed. But normal is certainly not where I was.
A sip of the toasting champagne. Literally 2 cherrie tomatoes, four cucumber slices, and two pepper slices. 10 candied almonds and 2 packs sugarless gum. That's what it took for me to be there today. I am not proud nor ashamed of the deviation. I just want to learn the lessons it has to teach. And they are these: you do not deviate from a fast with refined sugar or chemicals for the system is sensitive and painful indigestion is assured (sorry, bod!). As well, if sugar and chemicals are that invasive during a cleanse, (I'm talking immediate anarchy, people), then they are invasive always, may I not return to the "normal" diet which does not notice. Finally, I realized that cleansing is an extreme state we utilize to speed up detoxification, recovery and growth, but true health lies in what we consistently do afterwards - the diet, the rest, the exercise, the self-expression we can maintain day to day. And if it has to be "not ideal" (a difficult one for me) in order to be maintainable, well "not ideal" is then just might be healthier over the long run.
Do everything you can do consistently, and continually implement gentle improvements.
Spring Cleanse
Day 5
Day 5
April 03, 2004
When you wake up with a hangover, with a rock-n-roll headache looking like the slug someone threw salt on - a toasted shrinkie dink - there are two feasible cures: sleep & water, or another drink.
Toxins are anything the body can't make use of (like food in excess or neon colored anything) the body stores those extra bits in places like fat, mucous membranes, joints, and lymph and when there is an overabundance of these stored toxins, it looks like weight gain, allergies, arthritis, and migraines. As soon as there is room in the bloodstream, our body starts throwing the unassimilated bits back in for elimination and we experience detox; the salty-slug-hangover-poison-reunion-tour.
If we put more poison in, there will be no detox and we will on one hand avoid the headache, but on the other hand acquire quite a collection of chronic "strange" illnesses. If we instead choose sleep & water, those toxins will make their way out and yes, leave us feeling pretty shitty in the process, but hey - you should be sleeping anyway.
Fasting literally speeds everything up. Hence, Day 5 is not for the faint of heart, the safe or conservative. On Day 3 I felt my already quite clean body switch from superficial detox (digestive squatters and epidermal troublemakers) to a deeper level of cleansing. Day 5.
First my mind let go, and I was confronted with outdated belief systems, stagnant thought patterns and inflexible goals. Word toxins rushed forth and flooded my bloodstream to be eliminated via pen and journal. Then my emotions broke levy: the time I didn't cry, loved and wasn't reciprocated, or believed my Loneliness to be "true". Dreams vast vivid lucid refused to be ignored, this emotional detox - but I should be sleeping anyway. Oh wait, I am...
at least I think it's me...
I've got the chills and can not warm up. I am revisiting issues I didn't know I still had. I console myself knowing that I only have to feel it, speak it, write it, exhale it, sweat it, piss it - detox it once.
Get it out. Get it all out. I am ready to grow.
Toxins are anything the body can't make use of (like food in excess or neon colored anything) the body stores those extra bits in places like fat, mucous membranes, joints, and lymph and when there is an overabundance of these stored toxins, it looks like weight gain, allergies, arthritis, and migraines. As soon as there is room in the bloodstream, our body starts throwing the unassimilated bits back in for elimination and we experience detox; the salty-slug-hangover-poison-reunion-tour.
If we put more poison in, there will be no detox and we will on one hand avoid the headache, but on the other hand acquire quite a collection of chronic "strange" illnesses. If we instead choose sleep & water, those toxins will make their way out and yes, leave us feeling pretty shitty in the process, but hey - you should be sleeping anyway.
Fasting literally speeds everything up. Hence, Day 5 is not for the faint of heart, the safe or conservative. On Day 3 I felt my already quite clean body switch from superficial detox (digestive squatters and epidermal troublemakers) to a deeper level of cleansing. Day 5.
First my mind let go, and I was confronted with outdated belief systems, stagnant thought patterns and inflexible goals. Word toxins rushed forth and flooded my bloodstream to be eliminated via pen and journal. Then my emotions broke levy: the time I didn't cry, loved and wasn't reciprocated, or believed my Loneliness to be "true". Dreams vast vivid lucid refused to be ignored, this emotional detox - but I should be sleeping anyway. Oh wait, I am...
at least I think it's me...
I've got the chills and can not warm up. I am revisiting issues I didn't know I still had. I console myself knowing that I only have to feel it, speak it, write it, exhale it, sweat it, piss it - detox it once.
Get it out. Get it all out. I am ready to grow.
Spring Cleanse
Day 4
Day 4
April 01, 2004
My desire to write tonite is diluted so I will be direct. My muscles are sore from physical therapy and I feel the need to recover through excessive sleep. My skin seems to be shedding at an alarming rate, perhaps this is my main method of elimination. My mood lifted today from yesterdays irritability and I felt connected, not to be confused with grounded. The sky seemed alarmingly blue several times and at one point, in light mediation, I actually saw life for what it is. Don't ask - I can't tell you. But tonite, when my momma watched television, I laid my head on her lap and she rubbed my back. She just rubbed my back the whole time I lie there and the way I felt is what life is.
Spring Cleanse
Day 3
Day 3
"I packed them myself, and yes, they've been in my possession at all times." Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked at my luggage in the mirror: a blender, cement cherub, a hardcover Mists of Avalon?!!!, For cryin-out-loud, girl, you can't travel with things that heavy!
"I'm sorry, Miss Kay, the bags under your eyes have exceeded federal regulations..."
I hear it means your liver is detoxing. The dark circles definitely aren't lack of sleep in this case, having lucid dreamed 8 full hours last nite. Even with all the rest though, today still almost got the best of me. Wednesday, what a hump day, Day 3 in the scheme of things, I might crumble if tomorrow is like today.
Upon rising I felt my energy lighter, thinner, less grounded. The world seemed invasive and rushing me, timing me. I tried to keep up, but felt like I was walking on someone else's legs, invading someone else's planet, wearing someone else's thong. Without ambition to join in, I much preferred observing this alien world I could not keep up with. Again, very little hunger besides an extreme craving around 4pm which I fed with 1/2 C raw almonds and 1/2 C raw honey (anything at this point to maintain my forward momentum, even if it is deviation, it is still perseverance). And a civ I became for my dislikes an likes, completely aware of how invasive the florescent lights, how annoying the radio, and how language is too often confused with a cheap tapestry to cover the walls, when it is more like a single candle that when carefully chosen and well spoken, can light an entire room.
What's this state I am in called? Oh, severely irritable. Whatever.
That is, severly irratable toward everyone and everything with the exception of one person: my little brother, Alex. Something about him - his social eloquence, his spiritual faith, the way he listens - on today of all days, Wednesday, hump day, the dreaded Day 3 - just the thought of Alex fills my heart with love and assures me there is hope for humanity.
Bring it on, Day 4. I continue.
"I'm sorry, Miss Kay, the bags under your eyes have exceeded federal regulations..."
I hear it means your liver is detoxing. The dark circles definitely aren't lack of sleep in this case, having lucid dreamed 8 full hours last nite. Even with all the rest though, today still almost got the best of me. Wednesday, what a hump day, Day 3 in the scheme of things, I might crumble if tomorrow is like today.
Upon rising I felt my energy lighter, thinner, less grounded. The world seemed invasive and rushing me, timing me. I tried to keep up, but felt like I was walking on someone else's legs, invading someone else's planet, wearing someone else's thong. Without ambition to join in, I much preferred observing this alien world I could not keep up with. Again, very little hunger besides an extreme craving around 4pm which I fed with 1/2 C raw almonds and 1/2 C raw honey (anything at this point to maintain my forward momentum, even if it is deviation, it is still perseverance). And a civ I became for my dislikes an likes, completely aware of how invasive the florescent lights, how annoying the radio, and how language is too often confused with a cheap tapestry to cover the walls, when it is more like a single candle that when carefully chosen and well spoken, can light an entire room.
What's this state I am in called? Oh, severely irritable. Whatever.
That is, severly irratable toward everyone and everything with the exception of one person: my little brother, Alex. Something about him - his social eloquence, his spiritual faith, the way he listens - on today of all days, Wednesday, hump day, the dreaded Day 3 - just the thought of Alex fills my heart with love and assures me there is hope for humanity.
Bring it on, Day 4. I continue.
