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My story
We have come
to gather
in circle
- open and wide
Caroline S'Jegers
Hi, I’m Caroline S’Jegers - a passionate weaver of dance, poetry, and remembrance.
My path has always been about listening. Listening to the body, to silence, to what lies underneath the visible. My childhood was marked by a mix of tenderness and unpredictability. Being confronted with mental illness in my family made me deeply sensitive to my environment. I was the joyful one. The perfect one. The one who read the room before I even entered it. Often making myself small to keep the (fake) harmony intact.
As a child I was already wondering when I was already wondering when people would finally grow up. Music became my shelter - a brave and safe space where I could touch the deepest parts within myself.
"It is exactly in this encounter
Of what feels uncomfortable
That creation can take place"
Over a decade ago, I arrived at my father's house when he had gone into a coma after years of a long journey of self-destruction and illness. One of the responders turned to me and shouted: “Does he want to live?” The words shook me to my core.
Was I truly alive?
Saying yes to life became the boldest decision I’ve ever made.
Following the call
In my journey, I’ve had the privilege of being part of groundbreaking and heart-opening movements...
What started in a small room with only a few dancers soon evolved into a global wave, touching thousands of lives across continents. And I stood at the heart of it, becoming the first female Ecstatic Dance DJ in Europe.
My journey into this work began long before I ever danced at Sweet’s Ballroom in Oakland in 2011 - the place where Ecstatic Dance grew into a worldwide movement. I was five years old when I joined my first dance class: we became a small seed that grew into a tree, and I loved it with my whole being. As a child, growing up around a lot of isolation, I often imagined creating a vibrant hub full of laughter and movement - where people could be free, expressive, and real. Dance, to me, has always been a powerful form of truth-telling.
For many years, I travelled from dance floor to dance floor. In 2014, I co-founded Ecstatic Dance Belgium, joined the team at the legendary Club Lite in Amsterdam, and helped create the first Ecstatic Dance Leadership Training in Europe. What began as a small gathering soon grew into a flourishing community - where people from all walks of life could meet, share their stories, and dance their truths. It’s been a wild and humbling journey, taking me across countries, cultures, and inner landscapes I never could have imagined.
Listening within listening
On 22nd May 2024, I released my first spoken word single More Than This featuring the amazing singer Uria Tsur. After the outbreak of the war in Israel and Palestine in 2023, I found myself lying awake at night - thinking about the many friends I have on the different sides of the wall… It often felt unbearable to imagine the hardships that so many of us are going through - and it was exactly in this moment that my poem came to me.
"Let us pray for common sense
We deserve to get a new chance
Because in the midst of trembling
We are united as one"
The day after the release, I was DJ’ing in a church in Amsterdam. It was a full moon in Scorpio. People kept asking to turn the music up. Louder. Louder. From the outside, I looked like I was living the life of my dreams. But inside, it felt like a war zone. The sound was so loud I wanted to run away - yet I felt I had to stay, to hold it all together. The weight of responsibility pressed on me. People were screaming over the music. The beat was pounding. My energy kept shrinking, and inside, tension was building. Gradually, a sharp sound began ringing in my ear. Painful. Piercing. I had nothing left to do but surrender.
Later, I came to see that my ears had so much more to tell me. I began diving back into my ancestral roots, listening within the listening. In Dutch, the word oor-log means war: oor is ear, log means heavy. A heavy ear. An ear that no longer hears. Maybe conflict begins when we stop listening - to each other, to our precious Earth, to ourselves.
That moment marked a deep shift in my life. I began to sense that these times are calling for something else. As a human species, we have been so busy, so productive for so long - and it runs deep in our blood. But we forget that we have a choice, and that we are far more powerful than we allow ourselves to believe.
Rooted in the Feminine
Over the years, I became a wife and mother and began attuning more closely to the cycles of life. Listening back to the feminine principle, I started to see that leadership lives in the capacity to stay present when things are messy, when change moves through, when clarity hasn’t yet arrived. Even though we’re constantly expected to move in straight lines, the feminine in me moves in cycles - creating, dissolving, beginning again. Connected to the moon and the seasons, guided by nature herself.
Giving birth freely to my two sons in the yurt of our previous permaculture community deepened my trust in the body’s intelligence and in the creative force that moves through all of life. As the first female Ecstatic Dance DJ in Europe, I felt called to open space for other women to step in. What began as a simple invitation grew into an online circle of more than seventy women connecting and supporting one another.
The funny thing is: I never really saw myself as a classical DJ. Music became a way of listening - a deep kind of midwifery. Each set invites me to attune to what wants to be born... in the room, in myself, and in the collective field. Over time, I came to sense sound and presence as a vibrational field. And as I move through my own seasons, I keep remembering the feminine - the fierce wisdom our society has long forgotten.
Pulse of my work
Now, I bring my wisdom and experiences into the spaces I am invited to - welcoming both the messiness and the beauty.
For thousands of years, people have gathered to give thanks, to honour change, to remember their place in the whole. My work continues to unfold, guided by the same question that has always moved me: how can we live in rhythm with life itself?
Over time, I’ve come to see that it is our shared task as humans to bring awareness into all we do. Whether we dance, write, parent, or build a business, every action shapes the world we share. Intention lives at the heart of it all. It is a collective task to rewrite and rewire our story - to create the systemic conditions that allow the cycle of destruction and distraction to stop with us. Why we come together shapes how our world unfolds - and what moves us here can ripple through every part of life.
The rhythm of my work has shifted as my life has changed. Becoming a mother and moving through new phases of creativity, I learned that true leadership isn’t about doing more, but about trusting, pausing, and letting the unknown shape us.
For over a decade, I’ve helped shape the conscious dance scene - co-founding Ecstatic Dance Belgium, building international communities, and becoming Europe’s first female Ecstatic Dance DJ. I supported the first Ecstatic Dance Leadership Training in Europe and was part of the core team at Club Lite in Amsterdam - a true heartbeat of the movement.
My dance journeys are rooted in ceremony and storytelling, inviting people to explore, remember, and co-create. Every breath and beat is an invitation to come home to yourself. I blend music, ritual, and embodied presence, trusting that dance is a powerful language for truth and belonging.
Skin to earth. Breath of life. Roots of joy.
My debut album "Birthing a Forest" is a journey into raw beauty - created with wonderful artists like Carrie Tree, Mitsch Kohn, Kevin James, and Uria Tsur. My work bridges cultures and traditions, always inviting people to reconnect with their roots and imagine new possibilities.
With a background in psychology and anthropology, I have spent years exploring how movement and ceremony bring healing and connection across cultures. From a young age, I was drawn to the deeper wisdom of dance, both in my studies and my personal life.
These explorations brought me to Kolkata Sanved in India, where dance was used to support survivors of prostitution and human trafficking, and to the West Bank of Palestine, where I worked with ImaginAction on constellation and theatre projects in war zones. In both places, I saw how easily pain is passed on - and how healing begins when people come together, to move and to be witnessed in the deepest grief.
My path has taken me through many forms of dance and embodiment work (such as Five Rhythms, Continuum, Gestalt Awareness Practice, Soul Motion, Open Floor, and many more), from constellation and theatre projects to community rituals and social change initiatives.
A turning point came in 2011, when I first encountered Ecstatic Dance in Oakland (California), and felt the power of movement rooted in community. That same year, I began learning with Michael Molin-Skelton from Soul Motion, whose soulful presence continues to inspire my own path.
Over the years, I have co-created with many visionary artists - from Rising Appalachia and Ayla Nereo, to Nessi Gomes, Mirabai Ceiba, and more - bringing people together through music, movement, and shared intention.
My sets are inspired by the principles of nature and by the traditions woven through our cultures. Over time, my work has taken many forms - from Playful Body to Heartbeat, from Roots to Poetry in Motion, from Dance Journey to Pulse Movement.
Besides being the initiator of Pulse Movement, I am also the voice behind the Weaving Circles Podcast. Through Heart of the Dance and together with Tom Goldhand and Léon Beckx, we support others in finding their unique leadership.
Journey of a wild heart
Returning to the land
As a mother of two sons, my life is deeply shaped by experiences of free birth, sustainable living, wealth with purpose and soul-led parenting. Together with my husband, Josse Horsten - a food forest designer and founder of Eetbaar Landschap (Edible Landscape) - we spent seven years immersed in a permaculture community. After four years of traveling as a family, we are now preparing to settle in a lush and gorgeous valley in Spain, weaving our passions for dance, regenerative living, and community into new roots.
We live with the earth as our teacher - learning each day through play, presence, and the crafts handed down from generation to generation. This vision is at the core of all my offerings, as I love to create spaces rooted in beauty, courage, and reciprocity. Every circle, every dance, every conversation is an ecosystem: living, breathing, and always connected to the great mystery.
The cycles of life lives at the center of my work - reminding me (and all who join) that giving and receiving are inseparable, and that our journeys are woven with the rhythms of earth, body, and community.
We give back - to the land, to each other, to what sustains us.
One dance. One breath. One remembering at a time.
The dance beyond us
Life begins in silence. In a breath shared without words. In a song that moves us to tears. In a dancer with eyes closed, listening within. Like seeds beneath the soil, our gifts grow in the dark before they ever meet the light.
What begins as a whisper become a pulse - carried by many, danced in circles across the world. It lives here: in every body that moves, in every voice that rises, in the stillness that holds us.
Maybe you are standing at a threshold. Maybe you are in a season of rest. Maybe you are in the middle of a full-on yes. Wherever you are, life moves in cycles. Every moment carries her own medicine.
So here is my invitation:
Come closer. Come just as you are.
Come if you are ready to enter the dance,
to let poetry carry you, to find your own truth within
to celebrate the wild joy of your tender heart.
Come to move, to root, to rise - together.You are so welcome here.
