Who We Are
the core group
Iris Disse
Iris Disse is a german theatre and filmmaker, actress; writer; expert for creative radio work, performing artist and composer of acoustic arts projects. She is the founder of Durga’s Tiger School, an international place based in Ecuador, where students come from USA, Canada and Europe to make a certified Yoga Teacher Training.
Iris studied journalism, philosophy and history of arts and theatre and worked from 1980 to 1994 as an actress for film and theatre and as a theatre director in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Since 1994 she has been based in Latin America and Europe. Her documentaries and movies reflect the social reality of the indigenous people in Latin America and Indonesia. She is a prize-winning sound and video artist and maintains some involvement in these fields.
1991 she became interested in meditation, breathing, singing and dancing as spiritual techniques with the Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Kahn. Every year she participated in monthly retreats in the Alps. Together with her partner David Höner, studied Tantra Yoga with a range of teachers and have been practicing Tantra for the last 20 years. They have been teaching Tantra in different countries since 1996.
Iris presented at the University of Quito (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar) and Durga’s Tiger School ®. Since 1994 she had worked with indigenous people in Latin America, and has become involved with Shamanistic Energy work.
Since 2000 Iris has developed Durga’s Tiger Teachings. She is the catalyst of “Durga’s Tiger School ® for Tantra, Yoga, Arts and Shamanism“, and is the choreographer of this transforming energy composition.
David Höner
I was born 66 years ago in Switzerland under the sign of Virgo. I grew up in the country, in a small village. After my training as a chef, I traveled the world. During this time I have seen many cuisines, met many different people. After the years in gastronomy I became a theater maker, a professional tango dancer and finally a journalist. At a big theater festival in Vienna I met Iris, the love of my life. We created our life together, did a tantric education, plays and radio plays until we emigrated to Ecuador in 1994 with our son, Wind. In 2005 I founded the organization "Kitchen without Borders" in Switzerland, which opened restaurants in areas of poverty and crisis, creates training places and offers hope a place at the dinner table through food and drink.
While in Ecuador Iris founded a school for yoga, art and shamanism. Durga's Tiger School. I have written two books about the place of hospitality in our society. Now we have decided to use our experience and joy of life in the new project to foster a community where a good life is possible. For this purpose we want to make available the land we have bought in Chontaduro, near the Pacific Ocean. In a place where many things are possible.
Renata Schwarz
Holistic Health Coach
Shamanic Healer
Tantra Yoga Teacher
Theta Healing and Kambô Practitioner
Through Shamanism I came to Vedic Culture, Ayurveda and later to Tantra Yoga. I see Tantra and Shamanism as the same. Both paths intertwine and emphasise personal experimentation and experience, using radical techniques to cleanse the body and mind—to break the shackles that bind us to our physical existence.
My life is a ritual. I made a decision to wake up three years ago and now every ritual, small talk, song, movie, etc. are new signs and new doors to go forward. I’m in the flow and I TRUST the universe and my intuition.
My mission is to help people wake up and remember who they truly are, to reconnect to their hearts and talents, and to rejuvenate their bodies to be healthy. The strong spirit of a warrior of light needs a strong body to match.
I have founded several retreat centers with my colleagues, in which we work with groups and individuals with great pleasure and care.
Our centers are located in Switzerland (see website), Colombia and hopefully soon in Ecuador.
When I stepped onto this land I felt my power: the power of my ancestors, my inner warrior, my inner goddess. This magic land reminds me to return to my ancient roots and to learn the timeless wisdom of mystic history. I felt a strong connection to my roots and my healing power. My plan is to build a healing house/school and to work with plant medicine rituals there.
I commit to this land, to Great Spirit to be back on the 29th of January 2022 to help with organization for one month and then come back again for a longer period in September 2022.
I’m excited to start this project with people, who have a tantric point of view, people who understand the power of creation together. Everyone has great individuality, talents and together we can create new art, new life, new movie. It will be a land of innovative ideas which we can manifest together.
Local Team
Main Crew
We work with the people from the neighboring fincas. Javier Bone, our administrator, organizes helpers who are working on projects like planting Cacao. Javier, together with three farmers from Venezuela work with us every day.
Javier Bone
24 years old Javier is our neighbor and the team leader of our local workers. He realizes with the team all the works on the farm including planting, building and animal care. He gives us advice about the neighborhood and the new world of a lonely farm in tropical surrounding. He is a college graduate and wants to study forestry. He is participating in some of our workshops as a facilitator.
Local Farmers for Planting and Special Skills
Sometimes we need more workers or craftsmen with special skills- and we have a group of neighbors and farmers who collaborate with us. Javier Bone, our administrator, organizes helpers who are working on projects like planting Cacao and trees for one and half hectares.
Joel Ignacio Carbo
Ignacio, a close friend of Javier, is constructing the entrance gate to our land and helps in farming, when hands are needed. He is a master carpenter, builder and knows a lot about agriculture.
Iganacio and his wife have three children and live in a nearby town, La Union. He likes to study and has a wide knowledge of many different subjects. His dream is to have his own farm one day, where he can use all his skills from construction to agriculture.
Juan Bone
Juan is an aspiring Reggaeton artist and one of our strong team of local workers along with his brothers Javier and Kenny. Today they planted banana, yucca and fruit trees in the new permaculture cacao plantation, so the earth will not dry out in summer.
Wilter Barre
Wilter is a farmer and our direct neighbor. He worked for the cacao and banana industry and is happy to have his own finca now. He sold us 100 banana seedlings and then planted them with Pedrito and Juan among the new cacao plants. He brings us bananas whenever we have eaten ours- a really good neighbor.
Kenny Bone
Kenny has just graduated from college and is working on various agricultural projects in the area. He wants to earn enough money to buy a motorcross bike- his dream is to become a professional rider.
in orbit: coming soon to the land
Marie Humpel
Who am I? How did I end up here and what am I going to do? Those questions seem fairly reasonable, you might say. Especially when I want to describe myself. So I will try. I am Helge Marie, I live in Germany and I’m polite most of the time. When I was about to fly to Ecuador in 2016 I googled “Ecuador yoga“. I can’t really tell you why but I guess I intuitively knew, yoga would help me to get myself clear. To find something within me beyond the labels people and I put on me. That’s how I got in touch with Durga’s Tiger.
Most people wouldn’t tell you I’ve changed much since then. I’m still Helge Marie. I’m still polite most of the time. I still do many different things. One year working in the office for a global player, another year bringing in the harvest on my dad’s farm. I don’t need great consistency in the outer world. I like to change the tunes. I love to connect with new environments, hear peoples stories and imagine how we could be. Doing so hurts at times. We all are so messed up together. People are not easy to understand when you read them through your personal kaleidoscope. I myself am not easy for me to understand I can tell you.
That’s why I want to create spaces where we can feel safe to open up our focuses. Get out of survival mode. Sense new things. Embrace new experiences. Spaces where one can discover what’s been covered within oneself. Durga’s Tiger School is such a space for me. And Durga’s Tiger Land certainly is, too, even though I haven’t touched the land yet.
I engaged with festivals a while ago. I like the idea of celebrating life and inviting people to do so. Holding the space to share thoughts and emotions through arts and sounds. To remember the language we all speak.
Organizing the Durga’s Tiger Festival brings me excitement, joy and gratitude. This land is blessed with big hearts and I’ll make sure we celebrate that well. If you want to get involved, don’t hesitate to contact me: durgastigerfestival@hotmail.com Whoever you are, whatever you can do - you are welcome to reach out and join.
Catherine-Ayer Gresham (C.A.)
C.A. has been with Durgas Tiger School since 2017 where she first discovered the language of Tantra. Immediately she could feel these philosophies resonate within her body. Each day, there is more confirmation that Tantra and working with the land is her path. How beautiful it is to transform passion into daily life.
C.A. has been teacher and facilitator of teacher trainings since 2018, a breast cancer survivor, and will graduate with a degree in Social Work in 2023.
community support
Jhoselyn Escobar
There I was bathing in the river, the Pastaza, which merges with the Amazon river. The sun was setting, the pink orangy clouds were in full explosion. Mountains full of green life all around. Life is beautiful, abundant, perfect, but as the river waters everything comes and goes. That was my last afternoon at my dad’s land. A land that I helped to shape, where I worked the soil, planted crops, cared, loved and connected with it all. A land that showed me how unpredictable, rebellious and magnificent Pacha Mama is. A land that allowed me to connect and understand her a bit more. A place where I vowed to be a land steward.
From my heart I wished I could stay there and build something where all beings live in consciousness and harmony. Now I know wishes from the heart always come true, just not in the exact way we wish for. As my dad was leaving his land behind, I was at Durga’s Tiger School doing my teacher training. Iris had mentioned the land they had just acquired in Rio Verde, Esmeraldas. I had to see it, I needed to go, feel it. As we arrived, the mountains, the greenery, the river, greeted us. My dad’s land was no longer but here it was Durga’s Tiger Land, a new home. A place I could be a land steward.
“Thank you, universe, thank you great mystery, thank you life. My heart was joyful. I am in”, I said, “I want to help, I want to be part of this”. In fact my heart told me I needed to be part of the Durga’s tiger family. So I did. Now I am a yoga teacher and part of the administration staff, I am the guardian of the Durga’s Tiger Dream, I am the steward of this dream. And that is how my role is evolving. I am the bridge now from Durga’s Tiger School to Durga’s Tiger Land. Where from the school I share the dream and link people to the land. To see it, to feel it. Just like I did. Opening the space, supporting, enabling while watching over the land's security, purity and wellbeing.
I am extremely lucky. I get to do what makes my heart joyful. If you are reading this and your heart is talking to you, reach out to us! Come be part of the family, of the dream.
Megan Beck
Megan’s inspiration comes through the act of creation. Whether this be individual projects or in collaboration, she flows when uplifting the world around her. She is a caregiver by nature, recognizing the beauty through photography, energy work and uniting with others to build a better future.
Megan graduated with a BFA in Documentary Photography and has been photographing professionally for more than 10 years. Personal interests led her to receive certification as a registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500) in Vinyasa and Tantra Yoga. She also studied at the Earthship Biotecture Academy in 2014 and, upon completion, went on to build Earthship homes and schools in many places around the world.
Combining her skills as an artist, photographer, yogini and builder, her focus is to use her knowledge for the betterment of the planet and all its inhabitants. To view her work: www.webandmud.com
In the words of Young Pueblo, “My faith for a better future is in the people who are turning the idea of unconditional love into a way of life.”
Alexander Soria
Ecuadorian nationality, Alex lived most of his life in the Andean Chocó where he remembered the feeling of living in harmony with the environment, building with bamboo and plants are his passions. He learned bamboo construction techniques with Taiwanese, Japanese and Ecuadorians, living in harmony with the existing nature in the Andean Chocó, he observed and understood a part of how nature interacts. He has been working with bamboo for more than 20 years, has studied different courses such as furniture and bamboo huts, studied Andean construction techniques, a construction technique that is based on the Sumak Kawsay - a way of life that is based on respecting the energy flow, as well as individuality within a community. Alexander is partner of Sofi Ferrin. The family with Joaquin (11) and Viola (16) are part of Durgas Tiger Land community.
”Being part of Durgas Tiger Land gives me a great opportunity to live in harmony with nature in a tropical climate. Teaching and learning about Sumak Kawsay through permaculture, harmonic bamboo constructions and living in community makes me love this project“.
Sofia Ferrín
Multidisciplinary artist, writer, active educator, cultural manager and woman healer of the Hopi medicine wheel and womb healing through menstrual meditation. My personal research is focused on art and literature within the production of works involving publications, paper-engineered artists' books in pop-up, art-book, paper-cut and origami techniques.
I am a single-teacher educator trained through 10 years of experience with the work of guidance in community schools with a holistic vision in various communities of Ecuador, (education for healing). I use sensitive language, Montessori and Waldorf materials and I focus on the autonomy of the child for his or her emotional development.
My work within communities with art and education united me with the visions of the different peoples and nationalities of Ecuador, their ancestry and their wisdom in the management of fire, the word, singing and planting.
As a healing woman my vision is connected since I was a child with the subtle plane, which has given me the authority to celebrate ceremonies of words, ceremonies of reconciliation of abortions, moon planting as self-knowledge and healing of our wombs and female body; I am also a guardian of the Hopi healing circle that is located in the Ilaló.
I believe in the communion of people through love and healing, in autonomy and individual strength from which a community of peace can be formed. For me tiger Land is a seed of light necessary for our time and our evolution as humanity.
Miltos Savvidis
He was once a manic market monkey, Of the concrete London jungle,
His mask, in the creek of trickling time, Slipped off slowly then did tumble
Layer by layer he shed his skin, 'Til vulnerable and naked,
And there he grokked his cardinal sin; That he sold his soul and faked it.
Now the 'I' in 'him' is lost, The 'm' too hard to find,
But if you breathe the 'h' enough, You might hear his hissing mind
Upon a roaring rock he clambers, His fingers crimped and gripped,
Or in a bustling ashram kitchen, Chewing chapati and curry dip
In undergrowth or canopy, He sings to bark and vine,
And moves into the ecstasy, Of the body's dancing rhyme
Perhaps you'll find him here or there, Perhaps you may never know him,
But if you read between these lines, You might find him in this poem.
Can't wait to see you all there!
Love,
Milto Savvidis
Christian Marti
Christian builds bridges between the rational world of engineering, of systems, of the mind, and the magical world of connection, of embodiment, of spirit. He holds a BSc in architecture, a MSc in spatial development and infrastructure systems, and a PhD in public transport planning, all from ETH Zurich. He specializes in interdisciplinary analysis of transportation and land use policies and progressive urban transport projects.
At the same time, he is an explorer of breath, sound, and movement, creating experiences for others and himself based on his passion for Tantra, Yoga, breathwork, music, dance, bodywork, and writing. He is a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500), a breathwork facilitator and a bodyworker. He organizes and co-leads teacher trainings for Durga's Tiger School and he co-founded and co-organizes the Wild Love Festival Switzerland. Christian is based in Ecuador and Switzerland. You can find him at www.unguardedlife.com and www.raumverkehr.ch
Eva Stützel
Eva Stützel, born in 1964, is the "Godmother" of the Durga’s Tiger Land Community. As one of our original supporters, Eva has shared with us important themes of community living such as financial aspects and sociocracy. Eva is co-founder of one of the most successful eco-villages in Europe - Sieben Linden, in Northern Germany. Sieben Linden has 140 members and she has spent more than half of her life in this project - living and working there since 1993.
Since 2004, Eva has worked as a consultant for other collective projects and has supported almost 100 projects in their development. She is a psychologist and has worked for many years in the management of the Sieben Linden organizations - and therefore combines in her current work all aspects of the Sieben Linden project: community management, group management, individual work, but also practical questions such as the legal structuring or how to finance a project.
The distinguishing mark of Eva Stützel's work with the "Community Compass" is that she deeply integrates all important levels of action in her work:
How to establish a community - the individual - the collective -the concrete project and the relationship to the world!
https://www.gemeinschaftskompass.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SoziokratieInGemeinschaften.pdf
Marco Salazar
Marco Salazar is an Esmeraldeño, a University docente and an Ecuadorian citizen of the world. He will help us find the right paths to the hearts and minds of our neighbors. He lives in Esmeraldas, was born here and knows the culture and mentality of the people.
His lived experience with his homeland and his experience studying and teaching in Universities in Europe and South America is an important factor to find the right way as a "bridge" for us to enter this new world on the coast that is foreign to us.
Bettina Steinle-Vossbeck
Bettina is a yoga teacher, freelance economist and publisher, and a sister - friend of Iris Disse. She is a visiter and supporter of the community project. If her health it allows, she would love to share her time in between Durga's Tiger Land, Phoenix, Arizona, and Germany.
Enthusiastic about yoga, she completed the 4-year BDY yoga training as well as many years of yoga. In 2005, she opened her own yoga school of therapeutic yoga, Pranayama, Meditation and Reiki. Through working with horses, she supports the connection of horses and people in their healing. She compliments these skills with tools she learned from her shamanic path of Sweet Medicine.
Her connection with Durga's Tiger School unites the yogic path and shamanic path into valuable forms of healing. As the director of Durga's Tiger International, her goal is to bring Kaula Tantra Yoga and the Durga's Tiger Teachings worldwide and to connect people internationally. She enjoys teaching in a team where being and knowing is through holding space where other people can experience and heal themselves.