Sonaesthetics Studios - Project: Journey to Inoqoa

Update 2/9 - 4/13

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:47:37 GMT

Now, it has already been over a month since my last post. During this time, we hosted an awesome Pi-Day Potluck celebrating 3/14/15 where we were able to get some great people together to share in food and company. Then soon after that, we had to take a bit of recovery time as it had become cold/flu season and I had a little bit of a cold that made life a little less pleasant.

It is already April, and even after a bit of time distanced from thoughts of Inoqoa, the desire is still strong. This concept of Inoqoa that has now been seven years in the making, still rings true as we seek to bring deeper values back into human consciousness. We have decided that the route to do this is through forging the coin and we found out that our neighbor actually has a forge already, so we are that much closer in making this 'token of the realm' a reality.

Also, I have now received the raw wav session files from Matthew Santos for his songs 'Seven Years,' 'It all works out' , and 'And now the leap.' Several months ago, I pledged some money to his campaign for his new album on which these songs appear, so that we would have access to some music to use for our documentary film.

I am excited to collaborate with Matthew Santos! Here's a link to his website and pledgemusic campaign:
http://www.matthewsantos.com/
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/matthewsantos
_______________________________________________________________________
Here's some of what Matt had to say about his song, "Seven Years" :

“Seven Years” is probably one of my favorite tunes on this record, as it’s the one that has undergone the most growth and change since its conception. This was a song that was based on a rare occurrence of a lucid dream, wherein I was confronted with an unbeatable enemy of sorts, and I chose the fight over the flight.

I remember being violently beaten, and then waking up in a hospital bed while being nursed back to health. It wasn’t until someone had told me that I had been in a coma for seven years that the gravity of the (dream) situation hit me; like I had lost a major piece of my life and youth and was conscious of the full weight of this loss as if it were real.

The subsequent emotional qualities were in fact, very real. When I woke up (in reality) I immediately starting writing about the dream in detail, and naturally in a song format. There was so much to cover, so many things to capture from the fading vision of this experience that I was frantically typing everything I could recall.

SEVEN YEARS

Late one night / I awoke in a dream / found myself in a fight / and he was stronger than me.

Could of sworn it was real / taste of blood in my mouth / every blow I could feel / he was an unstoppable force / a storm of violent discourse.

Late one night / I awoke in a hospital / bed with my head / held heavy and hazy.

Was I going crazy? / How long have been under? / The date on the paper… / seven years of deep slumber….

Asleep for seven years,
Asleep for seven years.

“It’s nice to see you again…” she said, / “thought you’d never wake up… / I moved on with my life…this is my husband Jacob…
…and these my two two children, / eldest named Matthew… / I’m so sorry love, but I hope you understand…I hope you understand.”

Asleep for seven years,
Asleep for seven years.

Early one morning / I woke up in a cold sweat / with time like a vulture circling round above my head.

All the days I’ve been wasting / unfocused and lazy / how I take it for granted / time is an unstoppable force / (all things must run their course).

Asleep for seven years,
Asleep for seven years.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling / of an underlying message / that came to me through this tragedy turned miracle awakening.

Tables keep turning / we’re gone before you know it / let your love be your beacon / live and breathe it / work to grow it / gotta’ work to grow it.

And it all works out / just not like you thought it would.

2/2 - 2/8

Mon, 02 Mar 2015 07:01:32 GMT

Michael and I both went back to work this week. He went back on Monday, 2/2 and I went back the following day.

During this time of re-incorporating old routines into new ones, we noticed a few things. Michael said work feels different to him now. This is probably good because he didn't have very good feelings about work before, but now I think he feels more like it's a place where he can be productive and focus. This is good because we have a lot of projects that we're working on that need our attention.

For me, I realized that I lost some weight during these weeks of little sleep and little food. This is difficult for me to accept because I hardly make it over 100lbs normally and we don't have a scale at home, but I'm sure I was floating around in the mid to low 90s because I could noticeably see that my clothes were not fitting the same as they used to. And my belt-- wow. This is not okay and it didn't help that I had fell out of my normal work-out routine as I was trying to incorporate a new work schedule and decided to limit my food budget this month to $300.

Several years ago, I spent a few months using Dave's Ramsey's envelope system from his 'financial peace university' course to help me get a hold of my spending. This entailed pulling out all of my funds for the month in cash and spending from several different envelopes labeled with different categories such as food, gas, supplies, entertainment etc. This is a bit much for me now, so this month I decided to at least do my food budget in cash because that is easily where I can spend way over what I would want to in a month. ---- more later!

Thank you from Michael

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:20:00 GMT

"After not lifting for several weeks, I attempt dips again with my accomplice, Yeon-Hee.

Physically, the weeks off were not what I would consider to be rest, but rather a period where my body was breaking down due to no sleep. This particular bout of extreme insomnia really made me feel the pain in my body before finally getting some sleep - so being able to lift again really is a marker of coming back to health. While I feel refreshed in many ways and gained much from the experience, physically I feel that my body is having to recover from a lot and that part hasn't been easy.

Thanks to all who have shown support. ShadowGym is coming back, and our other projects are coming along as well. Stay tuned for what's to come!"

-MKC

This week in Review 1/26 - 2/2

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 23:53:15 GMT

MKC Sleep Report

1/26-1/27: 9 hr
16:30 - 18:00 (1.5hr nap)
23:30 - 00:30 (1hr) then 4hours awake.
4:30 - 11:00 (6.5hr)

1/27-1/28: 10.5 hr
21:30 - 8:00 (10.5hr) briefly waking at 1:30

1/28-1/29: 10 hr
23:30 - 9:30 (10 hr)

1/29-1/30: 9 hr
23:30-8:30 (9hr) briefly waking at 4:20

1/30-1/31: 8.5 hr
23:30-8:00 (8.5hr)

1/31-2/1: 9.5-10 hr
21:30 - 1:30 (4 hr) MKC waking from 1:30-2:30
2:30 - 8:30 (6 hr)

2/1-2/2: 6 hr
0:30 - 6:30 (6 hr)
6:30-9:00 (not sleep, but resting in bed-- dehydration)

1/26 - 1/27 (Mon-Tues)

1/26-1/27: 9 hr
16:30 - 18:00 (1.5hr nap)
    23:30 - 00:30 (1hr) then 4hours awake.
4:30 - 11:00 (6.5hr)

   Key progress today: Implementing morning ritual with music (Amiina).
Responding to as many people as possible. There's a lot to catch up on.
Took a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, then 1.5hr
nap. Chest Flies: 15lbs x 12 reps x 1 set // 25lbs x 12 reps x 4 sets // 25lbs x
21 x 1 set. Finally ate out for the first time in a couple weeks of not leaving the house. Went to Mekong Village just down the street and had the
most delicious shrimp dish either of us have ever had, plus our normal
BBQ Pork on Vermicelli dish, plus some beef wrapped in la lot leaf. So
delicious.

1/27 - 1/28 (Tues-Weds)

by Frank Fujimoto

1/27-1/28: 10.5 hr
21:30 - 8:00 (10.5hr) briefly waking at 1:30

Key progress today: Morning ritual today with no music. Strategizing for
funding. Took a walk with Stella today around Ravenna Park. Working
through emotions about support. Pho Than Bros for dinner. Marco Polo.

1/28 - 1/29 (Weds-Thurs)

1/28-1/29: 10 hr
23:30 - 9:30 (10 hr)

Key progress today: Morning ritual today with no
music. Oil change. Re- introducing tea and other
supplements into regimen. Supplements: green tea,
DL-Phenylalanine, Acetyl-L Carnitine, DHA-Oil,
Vitamin D, Lutein, Humanofort, COQ-10, Ashwaghanda, shilajit, slin-sane,
Reishii. Planning stuff. Workout-- Chins: 2reps@ +35lbs // 2reps @+70lbs
// 3reps x3sets +70lbs // 1rep x4 @+70lbs // 5x +35lbs pullups. Went to
Gordito's for lunch after workout. Then went to Greg's place to check out
Rez and plan video game project. Chicken breast tenders with onion and
spices with kimchee for dinner at ~9:10pm. Casein protein shake prior to
sleep.

1/29 - 1/30 (Thurs-Fri)

1/29-1/30: 9 hr
23:30-8:30 (9hr) briefly waking at 4:20

Key progress today: Shoulders: Back shoulder flies 25lbs x 12reps x 4 sets.
Haircut! Emailed back about video game project (level and two functions.)
Yeon-Hee back to teaching today. Emailed Artjom. Marco Polo.
Homemade meatloaf for dinner. Supplements: Green tea, DL-
Phenylalanine, etc.

1/30 - 1/31 (Fri-Sat)

1/30-1/31: 8.5 hr
23:30-8:00 (8.5hr)

Key progress today: Work on Inoqoa website a lot. Start making SG Video
#1 - Comeback Dips. Dips: shown in video. India Bistro buffet after doing
dips. Grocery Outlet-- really good buys. Resolving to shop more at Grocery
Outlet.

1/31 - 2/1 (Sat-Sun)

1/31-2/1: 9.5-10 hr
21:30 - 1:30 (4 hr) MKC waking from 1:30-2:30
2:30 - 8:30 (6 hr)

Key progress today: Work on Inoqoa website a lot again. Visit from
missionaries. They helped us break down boxes and stuff and we had good
conversation about openness. Went to get food at Teriyaki & Pho.
Mongolian beef and Chicken & Pork. Watched Adam's Apples - Mads
Mikkelsen movie. Marco Polo. Worked on SG Video #1.

2/1 - 2/2 (Sun-Mon)

2/1-2/2: 6 hr
0:30 - 6:30 (6 hr)
6:30-9:00 (not sleep, but resting in bed)

Key progress today: YH worked on researching Inoqoa and SG official
registration and licensing type stuff today. Also worked on Inoqoa website
and finished ShadowGym Video #1. Oh, Superbowl was also today. Such a
disappointment. For food: Rosemary bread with salmon spread,
grapefruit, chocolate guernsey milk, newman's milk chocolate peanut
butter cup, leftover mongolian beef, etc.

Update 1/25 - 1/26

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:34:19 GMT

[Amount of sleep previous night: 9.5 solid hours]

Yep, so on the night of 1/25 - 1/26 we got a solid 9.5 hours of sleep. I asked Michael later how rested he felt after waking up from that (on a 0 > 5 scale) and he said 6. I felt about the same.

We were pretty much so exhausted from the previous night of broken up sleep that this huge block of sleep came to us quite naturally. We went to bed at 10pm that night and woke at 7:30am. We remembered also about our morning ritual that we are putting together where we try to recall a list of 7 aspects, which are the interpretations of the aspects of learning.

These are: Dance, Rhythm, Music, Affinity, Path, Way of life, and Home-- which correspond to the 7 aspects of learning which are: War, Ritual, Magic, Alchemy, Condition, Religion, and Temple (garden). There are several more sets of seven aspects that intertwine pretty intricately and all these aspects add up to pretty much a way to view life. We also found a way to align them to specific scale tones!

More about this Inoqoa philosophy will be posted to http://www.inoqoa.com/ soon. This is pretty much a placeholder site to hold the content of our ideas until we get someone who is willing to help us with the web design.

We did a lot of planning and strategizing today during the morning hours and we were discussing a simple definition for magic and I ended up making an attempt to prove magic in a geometrical proof kind of way. It was fascinating and I didn't quite finish that yet, because I took a tangent off into considering how language is pretty much the same thing as magic. I ended up spending a good chunk of time creating the following drawings:

Limited power and scope of mono-lingual existence.

The power of connection through multi-lingual existence.

It may be a bit difficult to tell what is going on here in these pictures, but in each picture, the small infinity symbols symbolize a word in any given language and how when you group them together in a system, that makes up a language. The upside-down power symbol looking character (half-circle with line through the opening) symbolizes power. Each language on their own have the power of communication when shared among people. (The people are represented here by the little brown pseudo-chinese markings for tree/forest). Also, note that each infinity symbol is contained by a dashed line, which is to indicate that words are containers that have certain properties, but cannot be limited because we know that people create new definitions for words all the time. Words are flexible.

The first picture is meant to show how limiting it can be to exist within just one power structure, that is to say-- to speak only one language. It does allow you access to your single island (or lily-pad, aka continent or culture) of people, but that's all. It's like considering your one culture to be the only culture. It can sometimes lead a person to think that there is only one way of thinking and that the only intelligent thoughts are those from ones own culture.

In the second picture, I pulled out a single person to represent how a multi-lingual person might exist and as you can see, it is a much more connected and beautiful existence that gives you access to more ways of thinking.

Anyway------- that was my little art project for the morning. Then we proceeded to strategize more about how to get Project Inoqoa off the ground. We are currently juggling several moving pieces to figure out how they all work together and you can expect more and more things to come out into the public sphere soon.

We decided to take a walk outside around 4pm to catch the sun while it was out because the weather was really great and we really needed some fresh air and exercise because we had reduced our exercise regimen by a lot this past week because we were feeling so weak. But, after the walk, we came home and took a 1.5hr nap and then did some more work for a bit before woking out. We were able to do a few sets of chest flies, which was good. Just easing back into working out again.

MKC: Chest flies
2x10 @ 15lbs.
4 x 12 @ 25lbs, then
1 x 21 @ 25lbs to finish.

YHY: Chest flies
2x10 @15lbs

Later, we finally made it out to eat for the first time in over a week. We ended up sticking close and went down to Mekong Village and had the best shrimp I have ever had in my life, along with a great beef appetizer, and our regula-- the BBQ pork on vermicelli.

After more strategizing and planning, we tried to go to sleep at 11:30pm, but Michael woke up at 12:30am with a vision and with night sweats. These visions/night sweats happened two days ago too, so I decided to grab my hair dryer and the weird "ion diffuser" thing it comes with so we could dry the bed and he really enjoyed that. It makes the hairdryer look so---- ROBO. :P

After being up for another 4 hours, we slept for another 4 hours. Interesting. We fell into a 4 hour wake, 4 hour sleep cycle. At that point, 8:30am, I tried to sleep more, but I couldn't. I was in bed till like 9:30am but I couldn't fall back asleep, so I got up. Michael slept till around 11am.

This gives him a total of 9 hours of sleep between 4:30pm and 11am of 1/26-1/27.

For me, I got 6.5 hours, which is pretty normal for me. I may supplement this later with a nap-- but I will leave those details for the next post.

A domani!
Yeon-Hee

***UPDATE - Evolving Story and Vision (January 26, 9:11pm) from fb

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:18:02 GMT

***UPDATE - An Evolving Story and Vision***

In case any of you were wondering, I will be moving most of Michael and My Story to this page: <http://www.sonaesthetics.com/project-journey-to-inoqoa>

We plan to keep a detailed blog of our journey at the following link, and we also plan to film and produce a documentary about the power of healing through community, love & compassion, and inclusion as a path to healing our society as opposed to fear and shunning-- using our story as one example. Thank you Alisa Chanelle Dickinson for your interest in helping us make this a reality!

In this documentary, we will explain our vision to create a healing center-- this will be a place where those in need of help or are otherwise not well served by the system can go to be surrounded by support and healed. This will also potentially be a place that co-resides with a Montessori Education System so our children can be raised in a community of hope and healing. All-in-all, this is a place where we will collectively join together to be a kind of "Research & Development" place where we create a more grounded and respectful path for education, a loving and compassionate way to approach healing, and ultimately to create a new culture for future generations.

One or more funding campaigns will be coming soon, as we are very passionate about taking the responsibility to spearhead the world's deepest issues of money, power, food, water, healing, and working toward a better integrated and collaborative and inclusive world and we are looking to make connections with people and organizations who feel a similar passion.

When we are a little more prepared, we are planning to reach out to Chris Jordan (a local artist once featured on Ted Talks <http://www.ted.com/…/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_st…>) whom I've met before once at an annual SIETAR conference in 2009 (SIETAR: Society for Intercultural Training and Research). We also would like to reach out to Dr. Vladimir Khavinson who is on the leading edge of nano-medicine, and also Matthew Santos who is one of my favorite musicians (who I have already started roads in to collaborating with). And this is just the beginning.

Thank you for reading. And I am looking forward to building a collective vision for the future with you. Thank you for all your support.

With Deepest Love & Gratitude,
Yeon-Hee

Update: 1/24 - 1/25

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:28:43 GMT

Yesterday, we started working on creating and using a 'Life Mastery' type of system based on my "Sleep Mastery" system that created when I was exploring poly-phasic sleep a couple years ago.

This reflective, observation-based system will help us build strong and healthy routines into our lives and once we 'perfect' the system, we plan to share this structure with the world.. perhaps by selling notebooks made of these sheets as a kind of training manual/journal to help people optimize their lives by connecting to their circadian rhythms, reflecting on the effects that foods and other substances have on our bodies and our energy during the day, and how to optimize healing at night.

The sleep on the night of (1/23-1/24) was a solid 11hours, but (1/24-1/25) was a little bit different. We went to sleep at 11:30pm and were able to sleep until 1:30am when Michael had a waking/creative energy that he wanted to pursue for a bit. Instead of telling him, no and to go back to sleep, I decided to see where this would go, so I explored some creative ideas with him and we naturally got tired again by 3am. That meant that we slept for a little over one sleep cycle (90-mins) and then were awake for exactly 1 sleep cycle before goinng back to sleep at 3am. When we went back to sleep at 3am, we were able to sleep until 6am, when Michael woke again with another creative spurt. We pursued these ideas until 7:30am (completing one sleep/wake cycle) and decided to go back to sleep again at 7:30am. Just when we were floating into a pleasant sleep, Michael's phone vibrated from a notification and woke both of us up. This was very aggravating, but we were able to go back to sleep again until 9:45am.

In total, we were able to sleep just under 7 hours that night.

For me, I did not feel as rested as I did when I woke from a solid 11hours of sleep, but decided to manage this by taking a 20-minute power nap after dinner. This served me well. I would normally try to take this type of nap (or if I felt like I needed it, I would take a 90-minute nap (1-cycle)) sometime between 1-3pm, but we were busy having a visit from our friend Meg today. Meg came over around 4:30pm and spent time with us and cooked us a delicious lamb yogurt curry with naan. It pretty much saved our lives. At the tail end of dinner, Michael's neurologist friend Misha came to visit bearing two gallons of crystal geyser spring water as gifts/tributes for healing. This was great because we were running out of water. It was pretty much right after dinner that I took my nap, but Michael was busy catching up with Misha, so he couldn't take a nap.

Later, our friend Greg came to visit and we talked more about our vision to create this documentary about the power of healing with community and love & compassion. With this documentary, we would like to eventually fund the creation of a healing center located in Taos, NM. For now, we are working on creating a 'gofundme' fund drive to make it so Michael doesn't have to go back to his job. Honestly, I think it would be dangerous for him to go back to work in his current form. He is vibrant and beaming. He is passionate, still young, and willing to spearhead the deepest challenges of our time with me and with any others who would like to come together and make a change for this world for the sake of future generations.

He is truly a modern philosopher, minus the alcohol and with the addition of an intense drive to find a practical outlets and applications for his world vision and philosophy.

I quit my job in March of 2014 and have been on this journey with him for 2-3 years, working freelance part-time for people that I believe in (which still doesn't cover my expenses), so we plan to jointly start this funding campaign and I ask of you to help us heal society.

We are willing to take the responsibility to take on the world's deepest issues of money, power, food, water, and healing and working toward a better integrated and collaborative and inclusive world. Our goal is to create a place where those in need of help that are not well served by the system can go to be healed. We also plan for this center to double as a place where people who want to get in touch with their natural rhythms can go to train and optimize their lives by connecting to their circadian rhythms, reflecting on the effects that foods and other substances have on our bodies and our energy during the day, and how to optimize healing at night. This is a place for the outcast and a place for the elite top-performer. We are all inclusive.

Please watch for our gofundme campaign which will come here in the very near future.

Much Love,
Yeon-Hee

UPDATE - Amazing progress!! (January 24, 3:37pm)

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 03:49:46 GMT

*** UPDATE - Amazing progress!!***
Last night we were able to get the most restful night of sleep in the longest time. We were able to achieve a pretty solid 11 hours of sleep from 10:30pm-9:30am. Today we are working on creating a 'Life Mastery' type of system based on my "Sleep Mastery" system that created when I was exploring poly-phasic sleep a couple years ago. This reflective, observation-based system will help us build strong and healthy routines into our lives and once we 'perfect' the system, we plan to share this structure with the world.. perhaps by selling notebooks made of these sheets as a kind of training manual/journal to help people optimize their lives by connecting to their circadian rhythms, reflecting on the effects that foods and other substances have on our bodies and our energy during the day, and how to optimize healing at night.

There are some profoundly expansive projects that Michael and I have been working on for years that we are finally finding paths for. In order for us to achieve these goals and protect Michael from another bout of intense insomnia (seriously a life or death type thing we're talking about here), we need your prayer, thoughts, support, and collaboration from those of you that have talents you would like to share as support. [[specifically, we are currently looking for someone skilled in web-design and videography.. so if you are skilled in this way and would like to be on the inner-circle of the next big social movement based around Honor, Humility, Patience, Prudence, Kindness, Integrity, and Trust, please feel free to contact me. In terms of web-design, we have some very basic web structure figured out, but we could really use some help with this. If you're interested, contact me and I'll give you a link to the sites, which are pretty bare bones right now.. and we should talk. :P]].

In order for our projects to come to fruition, we are working on creating an online presence for our projects and starting a funding campaign to make things move forward. This is a pretty ambitious world vision and social movement that we will be sharing about sometime in the near future probably on indiegogo. We will also be posting more videos soon so you can track michael's progress to recovery.

This journey has been a great tribulation (so far), and you may be feeling this too because in truth, we are all interconnected. Like, just this week, at least 6 people we know have injured themselves or become sick-- perhaps you too, but I'm confident that the fog is lifting now. And I would like to offer this as a message of hope and healing for all of you out there who are suffering with us. You are not alone.

I hope that this victory that we are feeling over what would have been a potentially life-shattering/life-ending situation brings you hope because these past couple days have been nothing short of a miracle. Being able to heal someone with love, compassion, and community instead of with institution and forced medication is something we usually only see in movies. But this is real-- and all of you reading this post right now have been a real part of saving a life. I thank you all from the deepest core part of my heart for helping me and michael through this difficult time.

Michael is a completely changed person and sees things in a much brighter and more beautiful way. He is a completely changed person like a phoenix born from the ashes, and he is shining brighter than ever before. Let's rise and shine together.

Much Love,
Yeon-Hee

Pheonix Awakening - Resurrection into new body

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 02:30:44 GMT

Phoenix Awakening - Resurrection into new body from Yeon-Hee Yim on Vimeo.

"My fifth bout of severe insomnia struck last week and this is video footage from the morning after the first night of getting normal sleep. I found myself facing death once again by fasting from sleep and from food, but instead of dying, I rose from the ashes like a phoenix, reborn. I didn't know if I would fall asleep forever that night; I didn't know if I would rise to the sun forever and find myself in a waking death.

After my friends helped guide me through meditation to return to my bed and sleep with intention, I fell asleep for the first full night in a week. As I had awoken, this was my experience. This was an incredible journey, but it took nearly every last drop of vitality my body had in order to come back to this planet in a search for its original soul."

Things Michael created upon waking that first morning.

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 22:44:39 GMT