Interview Malta Today Nataša Pantović Interview Malta Today Nataša Pantović v2 09 Sep 2020

Interview Malta Today Nataša Pantović Interview Malta Today Nataša Pantović v2 09 Sep 2020.
Nataša Pantović: ‘I meditate in an attempt to recall my dreams’
Maltese-Serbian novelist Nataša Pantović tells all in our Q&A

laura_calleja
9 September 2020, 8:00am
by Laura Calleja

Nataša Pantović is a Maltese-Serbian novelist, management consultant, adoptive parent, and ‘ancient worlds explorer’ based in Malta. Ama: Playing the Glass Bead Game with Pythagoras and other books by Pantović can be purchased on Amazon.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Meditate in an attempt to recall my dreams. A dream diary is the most beautiful technique I’ve learned from Jung – he understood dreams to be messages from the unconscious, and through his own self-analysis, containing imagery that illustrates our internal soul “messaging” system.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

My dad, who had a PhD in law, used to discuss ancient philosophers with me, introducing me to Aristotle’s ‘eudaimonia’ - the “long-term happiness” that achieved throughout a lifetime when human beings achieve health, wealth, knowledge, friends and this in turn leads to the perfection of human nature...

What do you never leave the house without?

A book or a note-book...

Pick three words that describe yourself

“Arche”, “Logos”, and “Harmonia”.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

I could morph into a dolphin…

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Reading the Babylon stories written in 2,500 BC. Researching Ancient Greek, Chinese and Egyptian characters or Akkadian that symbolically narrate the stories of advanced civilizations of 2,500 BC. Discovering “real” history or how I call it “playing the glass bead game with Pythagoras”.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

I “jumped” into the role of parenting, adopting as a single mother, two instead of one kid (as originally planned) even though I had no husband to support me within this journey. The madness of my little “mission” left me at home, babysitting and writing books, one after the other, since my creative flow kept overpowering me.

Property and cars aside what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

Leonardo da Vinci’s A3 size Complete Book of Art.

What is one thing you wish you knew when you were younger?

Music, one thing I did not get as a gift from my parents. Perhaps I will be reborn as a musician.

Who’s your inspiration?

Giordano Bruno, Herman Hesse, and Tolstoy.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Original thinking. Any author’s dream is to be able to play the audience like a conductor does an orchestra. Take it onto a journey.

If you weren’t an ‘Ancient Worlds Consciousness Researcher’ what would you be doing?

I have already hugged a 3,000-years-old Maori tree in New Zealand and crossed the Savanah on foot and slept in the deserts of Africa, and climbed the hills of Nepal, danced barefoot under starry nights… so not researching, assuming the kids are no longer in need of my support, would probably take me back to exploring Serbian hills...

Do you believe in God?

As a dynamic, Orphic, hermaphrodite Universe of Consciousness, Yin and Yang manifestations... then yes.

If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would it be?

The full cast of Ama, my fiction book: the bat, who is also a story-teller, Pythagoras, who I (as a writer) meet jumping through a universal consciousness portal, Ama, the Kenyan goddess who meets the philosophers in her coffee house, Father Benedict, an Orthodox priest, her father Ottavio who is an alchemist… wow, what a party!

What’s your worst habit?

Never ending my stories. I was re-writing A-Ma for long 10 years. The issue of white supremacy, the institutional racism, female vs. male conflict, the East vs. West struggle, the Yin vs. Yang or Dogs vs. Cats, it is a story repeated over and over again. If you are a reader, you probably get one masterpiece a year, a book that is