Written By Iris Disse 

Leap Into a New Reality 

A stranded group of yogis and yoginis on the slopes of the volcano Ilalo in Ecuador. We are in a community experiment, inspired by the quarantine regulations, about 20 people on the grounds of Durga’s Tiger School. COVID-19 time, the world has stopped. 

Now it’s about applying the techniques we have learned in this crisis situation. Serenity, surrendering to a crazy, state-mandated security system. 

Duality 

Meditation. We open ourselves in the group to the trust and security that lies within ourselves, consciously giving an information of community to the universe. We feel the field of fear, and we penetrate it, sending joy, laughter, dance, solidarity. I am the catalyst and channel, held and inspired by the power of this emergency community. Our vision is needed. We are safe in this moment. 

Fully open and in peace I come to my beloved. He awaits me with food and a fire in the fireplace. I am grateful and full of love. 

As soon as we sit down, it’s: “The Chinese are sending… …and the Swiss bank, UBS, actually asks… …and Trump says those in Venezuelans are asking about cases in the US…” 

“Italy has… …and imagine the Germans… in Ecuador, there are no… the press is on the same page… health dictatorship…? Have you read…” 

My love takes pleasure in informing himself comprehensively, to get a picture to find out what the hell is really going on. I can feel his joy in putting together such a puzzle that is this reality. 

 
It blows my mind. I feel bombarded by information that I cannot change at this moment. That frightens me. When I try to stop David: “Please don’t tell me anymore, it’s getting too much.” He gets angry: “You are not interested in me, in what seems to be important to me…” Already we fluster ourselves up, my serenity is gone. David is the only person at this moment who can tear the ground from under my feet… …and so without ground to stand on, I’m falling back into old patterns that have nothing to do with peace. Man/woman war, I retreat, and we both feel defeated. 

Okay. 

Two energy fields collide and both are real in this moment: My strength and inner peace, drawn from meditation, meets the reality model of our time. When two strongly connected people represent these poles, they collide quite unchecked. I am not yet well enough anchored in the newer field… and it blows me away when my love “initiates” me unprepared. 

 
Shadow of Death 

Yes, it’s true. Here in Ecuador the dark side of the measures is glaringly visible. The largely poor population lives from hand to mouth. Everyday, the state imposes new measures that are increasingly pointless, copy paste from the USA or other western countries; the curfew now begins at 2 pm, penalties and imprisonment are threatened, the police are on duty, neighbours denounce themselves: “there are children playing in the street… a woman drives her cow to the pasture during the curfew…” The measures are out of proportion to the disease threatened by COVID-19. Panic is being stirred up. 

And all this to protect the old population? Is it really all about survival? Is that what makes our lives worth living? My 92-year-old father doesn’t think so. Alone with mother, he sits in front of his four cakes that anxious friends and neighbours have put outside for his birthday. He takes it with humour: “It’s nice that they want to save me from death – but whether it comes now or soon, it would be better to celebrate together.” 

Does the world keep quiet for fear of death? Defying death together through voluntary or involuntary isolation? The belief in our scientific worldview blossoms once again – we want to and will “conquer” death. 

You can “die well” if you lead a self-determined life and take responsibility for it. In the western world we live in the future as if death did not exist. 

 
Dream Reality 

Yes, it is positive to see that people are willing to limit themselves in this way because of the elderly. Humanity triumphs over productivity. It is positive that our planet is breathing a sigh of relief, that dolphins are jumping in Venice’s canals, that the rivers have clear water, that the smog bell has risen above the big cities. The proof is there: We can stop the wheel that is destroying our habitat without bloody revolutions. 

A utopian idea becomes true? How can we help to ensure that this image of reality prevails and not the image of a health dictatorship that is being set up to literally imprison people and make resistance impossible? 

The shaman Don Juan says: “A warrior must believe. He knows that reality per se does not exist. So he consciously believes that which gives him strength.” 

Joe Dispenza, in his research on the function of the brain, proves that reality is created by human beings, largely through our thoughts. 

Sheldrake researches the morphic field. If only between 3 – 10% of humanity changes their belief system and thinks, imagines, consciously believes, and commits to a different reality, the world will change. 

How do you come to such a powerful faith that moves mountains? 

House of Clouds 

On the mountain, 2600 meters altitude. 

On the ridge of the old volcano Ilalo I have a small hexagonal earth house. No electricity, no water. Many clouds, much sun, much rain, much wind. It is cold or hot. 

On the right and on the left I look into the valleys, and at dusk the lights go on there… So many lights. In front of me and behind me it is dark, uninhabited, and the mountain rises again in darkness, with wild shaggy vegetation. Above me the stars. The sun is setting, while the moon is rising. Sometimes. 

Three days of fasting and doing nothing. 

Today it is cloudy and cold. 

At dusk the clouds fall on my little house, drizzly rain covers me. I can no longer see our three shy alpacas grazing nearby. 

I go into the medicine wheel – two circles formed by stones taken from the river and consecrated according to Lakota tradition. 

What is it all about now, I ask the wind. 

The human wheel: What does my child, my wife, my husband, my soul, my centre tell me? A big stone for five elements of my being. 

The child tells me about play, about dance, about lightness. The man of structure that it takes to grow in consciousness. The soul speaks of letting go, of death in life. 

I touch the stone that channels feminine power. There is the earth power. I sit over the lake of fire of the volcano, and crying dissolves me. Suddenly I feel a breath in my ear. A soft alpaca snout gently touches my face, breathing, breathing. I feel loneliness inside me dissolving. I have to cry even more, it shakes me. And the breath on my ear remains, timelessly long, it doesn’t go away. Is it the Apu from the Ilalo, the spirit of the mountain, that greets me? 

And then, in the void, the knowledge: I will invest all the money I have saved in a piece of land for the Durga’s Tiger Community, and the land will belong to the community that has been manifesting itself for years, not to me alone. And I see that this is the answer at this moment: building community. It is not logical to give away everything I have saved for my old age, after all I will not receive a pension. I feel the security of the feather in the storm. 

A cold rain has begun to drench me, it is now dark and really very cold – and there is joy and trust in me as I stand in the centre and say thank you. 

 
Tantric Activism 

Is there a way in which tantric shamanic techniques can change the world in an acute crisis? That connect me to a source of knowledge that gives me gentle power over myself and my actions, and that supports me in submerging the freely floating existential fear? Tantric activism? 

If our reality is what many people focus their thoughts and ideas on and unconsciously agree on, we can change it by not ideologically participating anymore. We refuse to give power to the idea of a world conspiracy by consciously not believing in it – although there are many indications that we do. Yes, perhaps “the powerful” imagine this virus as a test run for a global domination of mankind. “Profit from every crisis” is a capitalist principle. Okay. So can we, we humans, who imagine a different, more philanthropic world. I communicate via the big web with friends in Europe. Those who live alone or in small families are usually not doing so well. “I have the feeling that the four walls of my apartment also include my thinking,” a friend sums it up. People who live in community live in abundance. ZEGG is a large community with 100 people. “Some people here include people who are unstable in health; others keep their distance and eat only in their small group; others enjoy meeting in the village square in spring. No group tries to convince the others, but they exchange information. Communication is very important now,” says my friend Barbara Stützel. 

 

The Good Life 

“Sumac Kawsay,” as the Kichwa Indians say, the concept of the “good life,” is enshrined in the constitution of Ecuador. Here it is not about growth, but about having time for each other, about communication, to have enough of what makes life worth living… And of course it is about enough food, a roof over your head. In this concept, one wonders whether a decision I make today will also bring blessings for the next seven generations. This means that it is natural to look for ways to live in harmony with nature. This concept also exists in Sufism, shamanism, Buddhism, Tantra – and Yoga. It is the paths of experience with the heart that bring people into contact with themselves. Expanded consciousness helps them to perceive that they are part of everything and therefore also of the divine. These techniques, long kept secret, are available to us today. We merely have to use them. We begin to think new thoughts, beautiful thoughts, of a world in which living together is adventurous and full of relish. The non-thinking as a rebellious political act. 

 
Shakti Dances 

Here in Ecuador we dance on the volcano. Now. We cook together, do yoga together, meditate, dance, breathe, touch, listen to each other. We experience abundance, we are grateful. The sun in the trees, the garden, the food, cats, dogs, alpacas, our being together. All this is luxury. We begin to plant a small field on the property. “If I have to die, then at least while I am doing what I am convinced of, karacho,” Hector, one of our wonderful yoga teachers, sums it up. 

Shakti dances – the team gets creative, we connect with the tiger riders worldwide who have done our yoga teacher training at some point. Yes, many now want an online training – one that Yoga Alliance would even recognize this in this exceptional situation. And so we begin to dream it into reality, our team from the different countries in Europe, the USA, and Ecuador. We have a lot to do, yes, and it is inspiring. We feel how exciting it is when we direct our energy away from fear in times of crisis. 

And my dearest and I? 

We realize that gathering information is his way. Yoga and shamanic techniques like breathwork and meditation and sharing are mine. Together we are a powerful team to change reality. He now tells me only what I need to know to ensure our safety and leads the cooking group of our new community. On Monday we will start with the online training together with the yoga students on site who will participate live. A life as we imagine it. Moving forward from moment to moment. The world, our life, a mystery.