Team
VIBRANT. COMMITED. AWARE.
The team consists of people with different life experiences and fields of expertise. We have participated in KABIRA events, and are constantly reflecting and developing in the LEAD programme. Our intention is to serve the highest level of consciousness by creating safe, loving and deeply transformative spaces for you.
Karlijn Kouwenhoven
FOUNDER & FACILITATOR
With years of experience in psychology, meditation, and self-development, Karlijn is known for creating powerful, clear, and transformative experiences.
Read more about Karlijn
Blanca Durga Wennekes
ASSISTANT
Durga is a ‘24 CORE graduate and lead assistant of HEARTCORE. She has a background in yoga, Tantra and emotional bodywork for over 15 years. After a corporate career of over two decades, she started her company B-conscious to guide people towards more body awareness and aliveness.
One of her own practices is kirtan with her friends of The Bhakti Groove. Durga’s global travels on her bicycle gave her life-changing insights. She loves working with groups, sharing her playfulness, care and inspiration.
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Yoeri Shi Nelis
ASSISTANT
Yoeri graduated from the CORE program in 2023 and has served many ceremonies as a Beyond Temple Assistant. Born into a tantric family, he lives in Bali where he works as a sustainability consultant, retreat chef, and Facilitated Breath Repatterning practitioner.
Yoeri brings calmth, rooted clarity, creative presence, and grounded compassion.
Nicky Guinevere Keijzer
ASSISTANT / THERAPIST
Nicky is an analytical therapist and founder of In de Diepte, a training institute for depth psychology and bodywork. With a background in psychiatry, addiction care, and Jungian studies, she guides women to break free from patterns, trauma, and limiting beliefs.
Her work invites women, especially around motherhood, to meet and integrate their shadow rather than avoid it, reclaiming their primal power and autonomy. Drawing from her own journey as a partner and mother of two, Nicky creates warm, clear, and transformative spaces.
Esther Lotus Strik
ASSISTANT
Lotus is a professional trainer, team coach, and co-founder of Rise and Shine Academy. With over 15 years of experience, she creates safe, open spaces for groups and individuals to connect deeply and grow.
Specialized in human skills and authentic connection, she brings a lively mix of peace and playfulness. Esther believes in the power of vulnerability and diversity and invites others to “get real” – meeting each other beyond roles and masks, with humor, warmth, and clarity.
Anna Sati Prat i Bascompte
ASSISTANT
Anna Sati is a Tantrika and Psychologist. She teaches Tantra at her company Growing Loving Relations, and with her partner founded the Tantric Joy Festival Amsterdam in 2020. She has been working as a Psychologist for 27 years.
She has always dedicated herself to acquiring tools that support a healthy relationship between body, mind and soul; focusing on love relations as the source of healing. She considers her partner Mark, their three grown-up daughters and grandchild, her best teachers in life.
Rens van Gool
ASSISTANT
Rens graduated in 2017 and has been assisting CORE ever since. He grew up in a spiritual community and brings several years of experience in training. He anchors himself as a spaceholder, coach, and proud father of three daughters. His qualities are described as Drents, loving, strong, sincere, supportive husband and fun.
Rens speaks of his participation in the CORE retreat as a major turning point: a breakthrough that allowed him to unravel layers of himself, and he is passionate about supporting others in this process.
Brigid Kintsugi Kalkhoven
ORGANISER & HOST
Brigid is the founder of Hartgedragen.nl, where she dreams, designs and brings to life the work that makes her heart sing. She guides women’s ceremonies, assists in sweat lodges, leads vision quests, and hosts transformative retreats and soul-journeys. Together with her dog Benji, she is based in Amsterdam.
As organiser of the SHAKTIPATS, manager of the CORE Graduate Community and host of our events, her intention is to create brave, nature-connected, wholehearted healing spaces.
Willem Nutan Rabsztyn
STRATEGY ADVISOR
Nutan is CEO and Co-Founder of Bookboost, a platform that helps hotels connect with guests through smart, efficient technology. With a background in tech development and entrepreneurship, he focuses on creating practical solutions that simplify hotel operations and strengthen guest relationships.
As a 2023 CORE graduate he provdies KABI·RA with strategic, technoligal and organisational support.
Sanne ten Wolde
RETREAT CHEF
Sanne is a vegan / plant-based retreat chef and the founder of Puur Sann. She cooks seasonally, using ingredients from her father’s biodynamic vegetable garden, and trains others in her programme to for retreat chefs. Her food is nutritious, innovative, caring.. With her positive, professional and bubbly energy a true asset to the CORE retreats.
“I believe my food & love can support building a more beautiful world in the most beautiful way.”
Nikki Bogman
RETREAT CHEF
Nikki is a chef, holistic therapist, ceremony leader, and founder of Paradijsvogels. She works with ritual, embodiment, and ancestral wisdom to guide people back to their inner truth and healing.
She assisted at VIVID, retreat bringing her intuitive presence and grounding energy to the team. Nikki is also on her own profound journey of embodiment, exploring the raw edges of life and death, and integrating these experiences into her work.
