博客來Australian visual artist, Calum Wilkins, travels to Korea. Feeling trapped in his solitude, he longs for a connection, a bond that will anchor him to the present, sweeping away the shadows of his past. Immersed in a foreign culture, he is looking for something more than love. He is looking for someone to complete him. He meets and falls in love with Halla, a Korean shaman.
Halla and Calum’s connection is not an ordinary romance by any means.
For Halla, their romance brings mental conflict. This is her first love affair after many years of abstinence. Although having made a determined choice not to complicate her life by being in a relationship, this sudden connection has a resonance that runs deep. However, the rebellion of Halla’s physical desires is destroying the fortress of self-reliance leaving her disoriented, a reality that contradicts the principles she clings to so fiercely. Calum, with his magnetic presence and allure, is becoming the instrument shattering her resolvAn unknown force, a magnetic attraction, that is a mystery to her, pulls her toward him. A riddle unfolds, an uncanny parallel universe, becomes increasingly evident to her as it builds in intensity.
Halla collects seeds from the Gingko tree which she uses to make a powerful erotic love potion. The effect on Calum is gradual. As the chemical merges and becomes activated, it sends him into altered states of perception. The experience provokes a profound and confronting question. Is Halla much more than a Sharman? Could she really be the fallen Korean goddess, Jacheongbi? Is she crafting the persona of being a mortal?
Vulnerable and disoriented, evidence accumulates in Calum’s mind of the truth of her identity as he struggles with reality, an elusive paradigm, pirouetting on a precipice of deception. The lines between authenticity and artifice, become indistinct on his horizon of comprehension.
Halla has been forced to live a clandestine lifestyle as there are those who seek her out. They are coming closer. With Calum beside her, she can see her life being lived how it should be lived, free of the prison walls around her.
