The Direction of the East (Part 2)

Isabella Mori continues her discussion with Carol Sill about the Direction of the East and the Mind world.

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The Direction of the East (Part 1)

Isabella Mori discusses the direction of the East and its relation to the mind world. This conversation continues in Part 2.

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Christian Buddhist Pagan

“I often think of God as a diamond, a huge huge diamond with many many facets. And for whatever reasons we can see the different facets, different people can see different facets.”

Isabella Mori in conversation with Carol Sill

C: Carrying on our conversation about some of your spiritual life …. I know that you’ve been involved for many years in actively pursuing a deep and sincere spiritual life. I’m wondering if you could just say a few words to us about how you got started. What awakened you first?

I: Actually, I come from a family where spirituality of one way or another was always … My grandfather was a Lutheran minister. My grandmother on my father’s side was spiritual in many ways, and now I would say strange ways. In her own way. She was a professed Lutheran but she also was – how should I say? For example, in the Second World War, right after when everybody was starving she went around and she read the cards to the people and that was how she met everybody. And she read strange books about stigmata…..just about everything. So it was always around me.

C: So it was natural for you to be aware of all the other aspects of life as well as what we see and hear in the physical world.

I: Absolutely yes. Plus my father was an artist , he was completely surrounded by artists. So all of that was really quite natural.

C: Can you tell me how this has affected you in your daily life in the past year or so? Any new ideas or ….?

I: That’s an interesting jump, to go from my roots when I was little, 2, 3 , 4, until now , with many many things that happened in between.

One thing that’s interesting that happened in the last 2 years or so is that I’ve become a little interested in my spiritual ancestry, from one part of my life. Eight years or so ago I realized I really needed to pay heed to my Christian ancestry and reconnected with that part. Shortly after I realized that to some degree certain practices that people often call pagan are important to me, and in that connection I started to look a little bit at my father’s ancestry. They spent most of their time in the Baltic triangle, so Russia, a little bit Baltics, Finland, Sweden. And to just kind of look at what the pagan influences from that area are. So that has been quite interesting. I don’t think I can talk very intelligently about it, but at the same time there’s been something very deep and stirring about that for me.

C: So the idea of coming into an understanding of your roots on a deep level helps infuse your life today.

I: Absolutely, yeah. And it excites me. One example is something that actually happened earlier, and when I realized that pagan practices would be of importance to me (which in itself is an interesting story), I was immediately drawn to the four directions. And especially the direction of the North. Of the cold and of the dark, which really surprised me because, as you know, I’ve spent some time in South America and felt really drawn to that, and felt I belonged there.

So I was surprised by how immediately drawn I was to the direction of the North. How very naturally it made me think of countries like Sweden and Norway, and some of the music that I know from there and some of the literature that I’m working with, and then afterwards I realized that I had some connection with the ancestry of the society. I read a little bit about Finnish magic, and if I have a chance to pick up something on the Norse gods and things like that…

C: And you find no separation or no conflict within yourself between believing in the spiritual life related to Christianity and any of the Norse gods?

I: No. Straight out no. I would describe my spiritual life as a mixture mostly of Christianity, Buddhism and Paganism and I see absolutely no contradiction there. Most Christians and Pagans and Buddhists – they tear their hair out when they hear that. But for me it’s really all the same. I mean, to me - I often think of God as a diamond, a huge huge diamond with many many facets. And for whatever reasons we can see the different facets, different people can see different facets.

I feel very lucky that somehow I get to see these three facets. There’re many many more, and maybe one day Allah will speak to me … I see a lot of connections with Sufism and especially Zen Buddhism. But so far Allah hasn’t spoken to me, ….

C: That’s great. Well I think that’s good for now, and we’ll end the call ….

I: Thank you very much Carol, it’s been good to talk to you.

View the video of this conversation.

Isabella Mori’s Christian Buddhist Paganism

Isabella Mori tells about her ancestors and their spiritual paths.

“I often think of God as a diamond, a huge huge diamond with many many facets. And for whatever reasons we can see the different facets, different people can see different facets.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation between Isabella Mori and Carol Sill.

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