sepeblog

Hello Friends!

(For further updates, I’ve set up a mailing list. Please visit this page: sepeblog.com/free-tibet/ to sign up.)

Just a quick update to let you know that I have arrived safely and without hassle in McLeod Gange, the small town above Dharamsala, India this morning!

WOW.

Hard to believe that a couple weeks ago I was asking for assitance, and now the help of my community has sent me to the heart of the Tibetan exile community. Its thrilling and unbelieveable!

Andrea and I just had a fantastic brainstorming lunch and are developing and clarifying our vision for the project.

Before leaving I was able to get some great footage of the Olympic Torch Protests in SF, as well as the Tibetan Fredom Torch Candle light Vigil where Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Richard Gere as well as many other incredible people spoke… not to mention the GG bridge action and the March To Tibet event in SF at 1015 Folsom. I’ve also already done about 10 interviews before I even got here! Its amazing how this is all unfolding! Big shoutout to Heather Hill for assisting with filming and for Caylee Sitz for rockstar support.

I’ve posted a couple things on my youtube page:

Laurel Sutherlin Speaks @ 1015
www.youtube.com/watch

Karsh Kale Interview with Wasfia Nazreen
youtube.com/watch

So again I send my thanks! YOU are all making this possible and I encourage all of you to find out more about the Tibetan’s situation, to spread the word, and to take actions of solidarity so that this non-violent movement for freedom can suceed. For the sake of the Tibetan’s and for the sake of all people who care about peace and justice.

Namaste!

Tom

Tomorrow I will mark 37 years around the Sun….

And I feel as if I may as well be turning 40. A mid-life moment. Not gonna say crisis, cause in a way that word is too small and too immediate. My whole life has been a crisis of sorts - always shifting, always questioning, always trying something new…” a time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger” as well as a time of intense joy, ease and safety. Life has felt very full.

And now I seek roots. I seek land. I seek connection to a place. My visionary image is that of a very old and beautiful tree - planted, rooted, majestic, life giving, and weathering what comes - being committed to a place.

And though I feel this massive Oak tree inside me, I am still but a tiny acorn rolling willy-nilly down the hill.. bouncing on the rocks, avoiding the squirrels, looking for that most fertile of places in which to hunkerdown, but mostly feeling cast by fate into the river of time… floating in spirals of possibility and watching the sky continuously change from grey to white to blue to orange to red to black….

My friends, for my birthday as ask for a simple gift from you. A magical gift of manifestation & connection.

I ask you to hold a vision in your hearts of a beautiful magical rural home - a place where many of you can come to gather in the summer time, retreat to in the winter time, a place that is vibrant and life giving, with clean water and fresh air and bountiful trees. A space to build things, a space to grow things, a space to learn. Good. Now imagine a string of hands reaching out to me… maybe one hand is yours, maybe in your other hand is a friend’s, maybe she reaches to another, and another, until that circle comes back around and a new hand reaches mine. And within that circle of friends there is a place called home. And I ask spirit to reveal this place to me through this circle - a real place of soil and rock, leaf and flower, house and shed. And may we someday soon stand in a real circle in that place and join hands and reside in the hearth of community. So mote it be.

Thank you!

I will be in Portland March 2nd - 4th, and dropping into the Bay Area Fri Mar 7th - Sun Mar 9th I hope to see some of my friends!

After 12 years in the Bay Area, I’ve decided it’s time for a break.

My current plan is to put stuff in storage, pack the truck and head north on June 24th. I’m targeting Southern Oregon. Its a nice midpoint between SF & Portland - two cities that I love and have lots of friends in, but it is also out of California proper and remote enough to feel far away. Actually its been more than twelve years - I’ve lived in the Bay Area since 1976 (with a 5 year hiatus in Santa Barbara for college) So I’ve been living here for 26 of my 36 years on this planet. That alone is reason to move!

I know that this may seem as a sudden shock to some of you; “How can this urban-party-hoppin-networking-multimedia-artist possibly survive deep in the woods?” Who knows?!? Its certainly an experiment. I really don’t know how I’m going to make this life shift. And there is a lot of sadness in leting go of that which is familiar to me - I will miss you my friends! However over the past six years, this intrepid explorer has been trying to reach escape velocity in my search for a life that feels sane. But for whatever reasons my spaceship has come smoking, skidding, crashing, back to this fair city by the sea. Allow me to explain a little about the planet I’m searching for.

I’ll start with the most esoteric reason first, because it really informs the rest, and if you only read a couple paragraphs, then at least I know you got the good stuff.

Reason #1: Sensitize Me

I’m seeking out a place where I can dive into a more intuitive-based way of existing. Natural Rhythms. Silence. Internal Visioning. Clean Healthy Living. I want to make some major changes in my mental, physical and emotional states. (more…)

ok so I’m a liar. I said I would write more… but I haven’t. It’s hard for me to do anything with any regularity… even breathing. My life is so full of complicated and diverse activities…

This morning I walked over to Urban Ore and perused the junked treasures…. I experienced a strange sensation of nostalgia and dizzyness as I wandered through the dust saturated items. There was something about the turn-of-the-century black walnut fireplace mantle and the old-fashioned spinning wheel, next to the scattered pieces of old computers and outdated film projectors, that gave me the same sensation I have when reading a good fiction novel… like I was really in another world. Everything I picked up had a history and as I looked at each thing I felt a sense of possibility for how it could be used, what I could make it into. I turned things upside down, squinted an eye, checked electrical connections, and slowly ran my frigid hands across handmade and machined surfaces. I was swimming in a creative black-hole of never-ending projects and I imagined having an artist studio there in the building where I could tinker and dream for weeks and months….

Breathe! whew! ok put it down. focus…. there is something I actually need…. a couple of brushless DC fan’s for the video projector I’m building. AH HA! found em. Only $3 each. Just saved $50 vs the new ones I saw at Radio Shack. I grabbed a couple strange looking light fixtures for the imaginary lamps I keep dreaming of making, a strange chrome bullet-like thing and a temperature gauge I might be able to install in my veggie oil truck.

Walking back to the warehouse, I wish I had more time to play and build things… the satisfaction I get from tinkering goes back to being a small child; a huge box of Legos, my first chemistry set, learning to fix my bicycle, making moonshine in my closet in junior high, the sticky smell of pine sap as I nailed yet another board into the tree-fort, and blowing up Robo-tech models with M80’s and gasoline.

Today I will edit some video, put new wicks on the Fire-Fans the ladies will be using next week in the Fire Ballet, and perhaps move forward on the video projector enclosure… I feel pretty lucky right now. Like I’m finally transforming my life to be able to make a living doing something I love. My next big wish is that I could live somewhere with a bathtub and lots of green plants!

IMG_0068.JPG, originally uploaded by tom_sepe.

Emily and Eve at L’Amour Dans Le Four in SF.

IMG_0088.JPG, originally uploaded by tom_sepe.

Yesha at Emily’s B-day Dinner Dec 2006

I think I read in the book “The Artist’s Way” that one has to be willing to be a bad artist before they can become a good artist.

So I guess I am finally realizing that I may risk being a bad blogger.

So in that spirit I’m going to sart posting more. Everyday? Don’t know. I’m hoping to find my writer’s voice. I marvel at how really good writer’s have a voice, and also have a way of writing that I can relate to. Somehow when I’m writing I feel as if I’m just writing to myself. How do I write to a larger audience? I’ve been really impressed with the writing of Erik Davis recently. (Check out this article) Funny, intelligent, poignent and he is as humble as he is learned.

I have thought many times about going back to school, and I’ve wondered what would I study?.. Art, Consciousness, Philosophy..? And then the more I think about it… the only thing to study is language, as it is the thing that underpins every subject. Even in science (which I admit is largely ruled by another language - math) one must write and speak about scientific matters in a language that people can understand… and we use metaphors and examples and comparisons to constantly talk around it. Language both limits and expands our experience. It is how we understand and communicate about any of these subjects. Linguistics and writing and speech. Which reminds me… I started reading a fabulous book recently called “The Unfolding of Language” which details how language evolves… fascinating and well written. But of course it made me wish I had paid better attention during English Grammer in High School.

I just got back from Southern Oregon, visiting my friend Laurel & Mookie’s Farm! I forgot to get video tapes, but the one I had in my camera had 13 minutes on it so I waited till sunset on the last day and shot some footage. The light was beautiful and a couple days later I edited together a little short.

All that is missing now is a little voiceover from Laurel explaining a little bit more about the farm….

Can’t wait to go back!