When I decided to go on sabbatical near the end of April I had no idea that it would lead to an extended and productive period of research, creativity, and personal exploration. Solitude, especially in very remote and wild areas, has its way of recalibrating one's perspective. It is along the lonely back roads, the deep hidden valleys and grottos, or high atop wind-swept bluffs that one is most likely to encounter a sense of another world. I had planned for a simple, quiet, and relatively brief break from the daily routine. Instead, my short period of respite has turned into an extended and on-going hermitage out in the savagely beautiful hinterlands.
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| Uttewalder Grund (1828) by Caspar David Friedrich |
I have spent so many years with my nose in books (or in front of a screen, sadly) that I became blind to certain signs, changes, and processes occurring around me; a sort of academic myopia. Then, after an unexpected spiritual vivication, answers to difficult questions with which I had previously struggled were suddenly right there -- they always had been -- all I had to do was notice. Not just look, but actually see. This has been a not-so-subtle wake-up call. I believe that everyone needs to see the world with renewed eyes now and then. Sometimes it takes stillness, desolate places, and isolation and for us to quell our internal chatter and finally hear the voices that have been trying to assist us all along.
I felt my readers deserved an explanation for this blog's inactivity as of late, and I do hope you understand. I am sure many of you have had similar experiences along your varied paths, so to some extent I may be preaching to the choir, as they say. After all, vision quests are an essential feature of many magical traditions.
Rest assured this blog will return soon with fully recharged batteries and all new reviews.
Thank you once again for your patience and for your continued support of Balkans Arcane Bindings.
Sincerely,
B. Balkan
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