The wound is the place where the light enters you – Jelalludin Rumi

Today I would like to invite you to join my Mount Fuji Energy Resonance, a distant healing event I am presenting free from Yamanashi, Japan.

Many of my blog readers and newsletter subscribers feel drawn to personally contributing to healing vibrations in Japan in the wake of last year’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident.

By collectively sharing Mount Fuji Energy Resonance, my vision is that we can join together distantly not only for vibrational energy within Japan, but also for unfolding and amplifying our inner healing energies.

In more than 20 years of energy work in Japan, I have experienced firsthand the special vibrations supporting me in the healing services I offer in my private sessions and teaching courses here at the foot of Mount Fuji.

Through distant resonance with these powerful earth energies I hope you, too, can more deeply access your own creative and spiritual energies in 2012.

Let the beauty we love be what we do – Jelalludin Rumi

MOUNT FUJI ENERGY RESONANCE

What is it?
A collective distant healing event presented free by Catrien Ross in Japan

When is it?
February 8, 2012
Mount Fuji Resonance will be presented at three different times to accommodate world time zones. The actual event will last about 15 minutes, each time.

Who can join?
Modern mystics, healers, energy workers, and anyone, anywhere, who feels drawn to being part of Mount Fuji vibrational energies at this time.

How can I join?
To register your long distance participation and to receive Mount Fuji Energy Resonance preparation exercises, please email the following information to info@energydoorways.com

Your Full Name
Your Email
Your Country
Your Preferred Time (Please choose your time from ①②③ below):

① February 8, at noon, Tokyo Time
② February 8, at 2 pm, Tokyo Time
③ February 8, at 8 pm, Tokyo Time

Why join?
May this shared moment of Mount Fuji Energy Resonance ground and expand our vibrational energies in 2012 for healing not only Japan, but also ourselves.

As we move into the new year with grateful awareness, please accept this Mount Fuji Energy Resonance event as a little healing gift from me at Energy Doorways in Yamanashi, Japan.

With love from the foot of Mount Fuji.

Catrien Ross
Energy Doorways
January 28, 2012

Did your dragons stir in you today?

As the Year of the Dragon begins in 2012, how many of you are unleashing inner dragons you have so far restricted or ignored?

Is their unruly roar now spurring you to reexamine your values and how you live your life?

What energies do you sense arising as you become more dragon aware?

In Japan, it is difficult to deny the existence of dragons – they are everywhere you turn.

Gushing water at shrines, enlivening the wooden beams and ceilings of temples, snaking across kimono silks.

Their ubiquitous presence expresses the dynamic shift at the heart of any creative or spiritual endeavor.

Unlike the dragons of Western lore, benevolent Asian dragons symbolize nature’s innate intelligence and regenerative resilience.

Perceived as the bringer of welcome rains, the dragon is also associated with auspicious unfolding, personal power, and creative abundance.

The pearl of wisdom clasped within the dragon’s claw offers seekers a key to inner knowing and contentment.

Wingless, serpentine dragons traverse the clouds, untrammeled in their freedom, inspiring us likewise to transcend our limitations.





The above photos show my close friend here in Yamanashi, the potter, Tosetsu-san.

Thirty-five years ago the appearance of dragons in her dreams compelled her to commit her life to clay and giving form to dragon inspiration.

Today, at the foot of Mount Fuji, she still perfects her craft – an intricate pottery weave that has become her trademark, along with a dignity of dragons found in temples and private collections all over Japan (for information about her pieces contact info@energydoorways.com).

Tosetsu-san and her dragons embody proof of the enormous power you access when you tap your own courage and passion.

Showcasing this wonderful friend today on my Energy Doorways blog is a perfect celebration of the Year of the Dragon’s arrival in 2012.

If dragons represent our deepest fears and desires, then freeing them begins the miracle of transformation.

As your inner dragons stir in you today, are you brave enough to listen?

Have you ever listened to a tree drink water?

Putting your ear to the trunk of this old Japanese oak, you can hear water being drawn up from the roots.

In the aftermath of last year’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake, my leaning into this tree, feeling its life force, helped my body recover from its physical disorientation.

Even before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, followed by the nuclear accident, several life-changing situations had arisen for me in Japan.

Then what was a triple tragedy for so many Japanese people served only to highlight those personal changes even more vividly.

In the most profound sense, something has forever shifted.

So much of what seemed to matter no longer matters so much.

How do you ground yourself when the ground beneath your feet is shifting?

If you can, you seek a more supportive direction, a more solid orientation.

One key is simply to celebrate being alive.

To know that your own life energies are available to empower you.

To sense that, akin to the old Japanese oak, water and blood course through you, supporting and sustaining you.

Since March 11, more than ever I appreciate being in Yamanashi, also known as the home of Mount Fuji, in what for me is the heart center of Japan.

How often do you acknowledge the influence of your environment on the personality you express?

For more than 15 years my outer and inner worlds have been shaped by living in the foreign culture I encounter here at the foot of Mount Fuji.

What I am become today is deeply connected to the cycles and rhythms of my daily life in the countryside of Yamanashi.

The Japanese oak in the photo is a quercus crispula in the midst of an ancient beech forest hidden in Aokigahara, or “sea of trees.”

For some, Aokigahara is a pathway into death – it is now a notorious suicide location.

For others, its hidden attractions are perceived as a continued source of inspiration and recovery.

In your response to life’s situations and events you reveal who you are.

This Energy Doorways blog is bilingual, published in both English and Japanese.

The Japanese blog features the activities of Energy Doorways in Japan, such as healing, teaching, and publishing.

The English blog is my means of sharing insights and inspirations from living in Yamanashi, and the personal growth lessons learned.

Since March 11 last year Japan has survived more than 6,700 aftershocks.

Things are shaking still.

What one person learns about evolving through challenges can be shared across cultures and borders.

Yamanashi, with its stunning natural beauty, has been the physical location underpinning my life lessons so far.

My hope is that what inspires me from the foot of Mount Fuji will inspire you, too.

Meantime, what are your own hopes for recovery and personal growth in 2012?

There have been deep changes, some of them very difficult, in our lives here in Japan.

Many of you who visit this blog regularly have been warmly supportive, even writing me personal emails just to stay in touch.

I appreciate this so much.

You have provided a touchstone for me during these thorny months.

One major shift is the focus of company activities at Energy Doorways.

There is renewed creative direction – a disassembling and regeneration.

And a reenergized commitment.

I will begin posting again soon, and will also be starting a more personal blog.

So I hope you will enjoy visiting again when you have time.

Today I just want to express my appreciation to all of you for hanging in there with me.

Thank you for holding me through the long silence.

Catrien Ross
September 20, 2010

Almost 1,500 years ago, Japanese samurai began perfecting the form of horseback archery known as yabusame (yah-boo-sah-meh).

On this sun-after-rain afternoon, beneath a glistening, snow-capped Mount Fuji, I join the yabusame festival my rural community has celebrated for over nine centuries.

Every year, on the April 29 national holiday, mounted archers display their martial art at Lake Kawaguchi, a three-minute walk from the front entrance of Energy Doorways, the Japanese publishing company I established here.

After a ritual ceremony at the nearby shrine, male and female archers ride out in measured procession towards the lakeshore.

Their finery replicates 13th century formal hunting costume – jaunty hats, deerskin chaps, jewel tone silks, black velvet chest protectors embroidered with gold crests, and soft leather shoes that slip into stirrups shaped like oversized, decorated slippers.

And, of course, the elegant, recurve bow, one of the longest in the world.

Although many in the West are familiar with the mystique of the Japanese sword, early samurai defined their warrior creed as The Way of the Bow and Horse.

Yabusame echoes that lost era of thundering hooves and singing arrows.

Conditions this year are especially challenging.

Morning rehearsals under heavy rain have churned the dirt track to mud, and a ferocious wind gusts.

Galloping at full tilt each archer readies the arrow for aim at targets spaced along the narrow track.

In successive rounds these are replaced with ever smaller targets – a bulls-eye board, then a wooden square, finally a suspended clay pot.

Since the archer needs both hands to load the arrow, draw the bow, and shoot, the horse is controlled with the knees, implying total trust between rider and animal.

At the precise moment of aim, the archer raises the body, twisting the bow at full draw, and releases the arrow with a special shout meant to align energy and intention.

Even in these unfavorable circumstances, with some horses slipping and arrows blown off course, several archers achieve the satisfying thwack of targets soundly hit.

Yet yabusame is not a vying for the title of the best archer.

Traditional training taught discipline, focus, and finesse.

Breathing practice harmonized mind and body under the most intense pressure, allowing the horse archer to overcome doubt and fear.

Imbued with spiritual significance, the martial art accorded respect to the divine, natural cycles, and human skill in delighting the gods.

Can such aspirations have any relevance in today’s world?

I invite you to share your thoughts about the following personal growth inspiration I gleaned from this year’s horseback archery event.

Yabusame-Inspired Actions

Identify exactly what and where your target is.

Execute every step necessary to support your aim.

Become really good at what you want to do.

Root your efforts in confidence and spiritual purpose.

Display your flair by dressing for the part.

Go all out, galloping at full tilt.

Face hostile situations with equanimity.

Recognize that authentic action yields its own reward.

Trust what carries you forward.

Celebrate the moment as all there is.

Yabusame-Inspired Lessons

It’s not about competing with others.

It’s about being the best only you can be in the present.

It’s not about winning applause.

It’s about dancing with your unique abilities and talents.

It’s not about taking home the prize.

It’s about reflecting harmony, prosperity, and shared abundance.

Yabusame-Inpsired Insights

Be what you are:

Express your passion with your true colors flying.

Act with courage:

Hitting your target requires your initial willingness to try.

Adjust your attitude:

Adverse conditions are simply that – your real test is how you respond.

Discover your inner power:

True aim arises from the certainty of centered stillness.

See the bigger picture:

When your arrow misses the mark, sense the gods are smiling anyway.

Show gratitude:

Appreciate your horse and trust teamwork – each one needs and helps the other.

Be bold:

Leave the crowds gasping with astonishment at your bravado.

Live fully, live well:

Look back and say, “I had a great ride.”

How do you feel about hitting your target at full gallop?

What other comments would you like to share?

How about you?

Are you alert to the vibrations reviving your passion and purpose?

Spring flowers broadcast frequencies that sing to your indifference, stirring you with renewed motivation.

Their vibrations spur your spirit’s shift from winter rhythms to the freshness of enlightened inspiration.

Spring also awakens you to the rippling of a myriad sentient beings.

Your sensory experience, encountered in every breath, defines you, reflects you, confirms you and supports you.

In the same way, the vibrations you broadcast reach outwards to affect each person you meet and each circumstance around you.

You live in a sea of vibration that resonates in your cells, informing your DNA and transforming your choices.

You do not know when vibrations arrive from afar to influence you.

You do not know how widely your own vibrations reach.


Manifestation taps the power of this vibrational continuum.

Your first impulse for creation takes shape within its energetic vortex.

Where intention goes, energy flows.

Your intentions unleash creative changes in the energy field that surrounds you.

Positive intentions combined with positive actions excite energy to move in desired directions.

Why should this be so?

Is it because the underlying principle of the universe is the joy of co-creation?

Is it because you share accountability for expressing the abundance of this creative intelligence?

Spring flowers flaunt their splendor, unabashed in their magnificence.

How about you?

Do you celebrate the forms and colors of your personality and character?

Do your dreams astonish with their boldness?

Do you unfurl your talents to a delighted world?

As spring vibrations quicken within you, how are you reviving your passion and purpose?

In Japan, I welcome the ripples of your response.

As I write this blog post, live-fire artillery is blasting Mount Fuji to bits.

Rocket bursts explode the calm of this early March morning.

Even at more than 30 kilometers distance, the earth here shudders.

Windows in my mountain minka rattle.

Blasts reverberate through its ancient beams.

The eyes of my dogs and cats reflect alarm, but they no longer express terror as they once did.

Like me, they have grown accustomed to this frequent disruption of country life rhythms.

For the fifteen years we have lived here, every year, several months a year, the cultural symbol of Japan, revered as Fuji-san, has been blasting to bits in our ears.

Each live-fire artillery exercise lasts several hours and is so sustained we shelter indoors until the assault is over.

I decided to write this blog post in response to readers who noted how much easier it must be for me to connect spiritually because I have fewer distractions, living as I do amidst such natural beauty.

Can live-fire artillery be considered sufficient spiritual distraction?

Or is experiencing a situation akin to a war-zone a peculiar sort of modern mystic training that will somehow deepen my spiritual awareness?

As a metaphor for the splintered reality in which so many of us live, blasting Mount Fuji to bits is particularly fitting.

Both inside and outside Japan, the solitary peak of Fuji-san is showcased in travel poster perfection.

Venture closer, however, and your reaction to the withered lower slopes can be visceral.

Acres upon acres of denuded landscape, fenced off with ominous warnings to sightseers and other careless intruders.

A desolation of decimated flora and fauna.

This ravaged wasteland is never mentioned in the drive to designate Mount Fuji as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

A World Cultural Heritage of what, exactly?

As an example of World Cultural Heritage that perfectly mirrors the reality of the world we have imagined for ourselves?

Is there some spiritual lesson to be gleaned from knowing that approval of World Cultural Heritage status is hampered by the fact that Mount Fuji is a gigantic toilet and garbage dump heaped from the vast amounts of human waste and trash left by climbers?

Year after year, Mount Fuji is portrayed as a singular cultural symbol associated with spiritual pursuits and the purity of Japanese feelings towards nature.

There are some 13,000 shrines on Mount Fuji, and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit annually.

Fuji-san is now a magnet for a new generation of spiritual seeker, including many Westerners, in quest of higher self enlightenment.

Official Japanese promotion efforts include brochures filled with stunning images of shrines, temples, lakes, and other natural wonders of the area around Mount Fuji.

Although some photos show the current “Operation Clean” at Fuji-san’s summit, there is not one picture of the scorched, demolished landscape in the artillery area.

And what of this description from a military support website?

“Camp Fuji was turned over to the Marine Corps from the US Army in 1953… Camp Fuji’s mission is to support military training by US Forces in the adjacent 34,000 acre Fuji Maneuver Area. The Fuji Maneuver Area has been the premier training ground in Japan ever since.”

For close to six decades, the foot of Mount Fuji has shuddered as a shelling range.

As if in recoil, our psyche, too, is denatured, devastated, and divided.

Splintered, we mentally inhabit the landscape of a blighted facade.

The inner contours of our genuine nature remain obscured by a lifetime’s store of our own and other people’s waste and garbage.

How can we live with this splintered self?

My answer is, we are not truly living at all.

We are simply moving through the days of our lives in a shell-shocked numbness that alienates us from our own authentic feelings and senses.

Whether unconsciously or deliberately, we prefer the masks of our cultural, social, religious, and educational conditioning.

Because we do not recognize they are only masks, we allow their destructive hold over us.

All the while, our inner mind desires revival, like the wasted firing grounds of Fuji-san.

So that is why, on an early morning in March, 2010, I am jolted by the blasting to bits of a Japanese national treasure called Fuji-san.

Meantime, the images of a pristine Mount Fuji continue to be shown.

And the illusion of spirituality and nature connection continues to be treasured.

But do we cling to such illusions because in our innermost soul we cry out for a better and more genuine way of connecting with our world?

What kind of a world do you and I live in now?

If blasting Mount Fuji to bits through live-fire artillery does indeed count as spiritual distraction, how can you and I recover the expanded awareness that makes sense of it all to yield authentic meaning in our everyday lives?

Given the choice, and the power to realize our deepest longing, what kind of a world would you and I envision?

What if we recognize our blighted landscape as a distorted mask we need only remove to reveal the fertile growth budding beneath?

What if we clean up our store of inner waste and garbage to uncover the treasures of our own genuine, loving hearts?

What kind of a world would you and I live in, then?

And what prevents us from realizing that world into being right now?

Under a volley of live-fire artillery at the foot of Mount Fuji, I welcome your thoughts.

Catrien Ross

Only when you stop liking and disliking
Will all be clearly understood.

When I suspend judgement of good versus bad in whatever happens to me or around me, suddenly I perceive the world through fresh eyes.

Which is much easier said than done.

How many judgements have you made today since you got up?

Think back.

What was your very first thought on waking?

A smile of acceptance or an expression of distaste?

What were the first words out of your mouth this morning?

Thank you, or…?

How did you greet today’s weather?

With equilibrium or an expletive?

What feelings did you show towards the first person you encountered?

An open joy or a scowl of annoyance?

How did you react to your first food or drink of the day?

With satisfaction or a critical grunt?

In what attitude did you begin your work?

Inspirational motivation or disillusionment?

How did you complete your work?

In grateful accomplishment or disappointed complaint?

When you judge the world in terms of dualities your expectations define your response.

And your judgmental response creates your experience.

You like something so you feel good.

You dislike something so you feel bad.

But why the need to judge at all?

Step for a moment into the reality of nature.

The sun does not rise because you desire light.

The moon shines whether or not the water catches its reflection.

The seasons refresh their cycles because they are seasons.

A tree is a tree, a bird a bird, your spouse your spouse.

From my vantage point above Lake Kawaguchi, the view of Mount Fuji reminds me:

The blue mountains are of themselves blue mountains;
The white clouds are of themselves white clouds.

By observing without judgement I can see things simply as they are.

By relinquishing expectations I can accept what unfolds.

Perhaps I can even experience my true nature as I am of myself I.

Whole, yet a part of all I see, and feel, and know.

And all of it, a part of me.

How did judging your day create your experience today?

The biggest and the most active blogging culture on Earth exists right here in Japan.

Worldwide, English speakers outnumber Japanese speakers by more than 5:1.

But a greater number of blog postings are now written in Japanese than in English.

The Japanese also read more blogs, more often, than anyone anywhere else.

Japanese has become the language of the global blogosphere.

What’s more, some 40 percent of this blogging is done on mobile phones, known as keitai.

Mobile phone blogging among young Japanese created the publishing phenomenon of the keitai shosetsu, or mobile phone novel.

These novels are written entirely on handsets, often one sentence at a time, and uploaded to mobile networking sites by their teenage or 20-something authors.

Then devoured by a ravenous audience of mostly females in their teens and 20’s.

In 2007, five of Japan’s ten best-selling novels were written on mobile phones.

One mobile content site reports it now carries 20,000 novels and has about two million monthly users.

Sophisticated and integrated blogging platforms have also made Japanese blogs a significant social media tool expertly wielded by millions.

Clearly I need more than empathy to keep up with all this.

I can’t imagine ever writing an entire novel with my thumbs on a tiny handset.

And the gist of the Japanese personal blog eludes me.

Compared to blogs in English it is much shorter (think diminutive keitai screens), and emoticons feature heavily, especially on blogs written by women.

When I write a blog for my Japanese website I write in English first, then Kohdoh translates into Japanese.

After that we check the nuance together.

It takes three times as long to compose.

And ends up three times the length of any Japanese language blog I view.

For cultural survival I need to lighten up.

Shorten my message.

Learn to communicate one sentence at a time.

Add a few smiley faces.

Along with a scattering of kisses.

And some pink, blinking hearts.

Perhaps even design my own emoticons, as many Japanese do.

I may get the hang of it eventually.

By then, of course, the blogosphere will have moved to different levels, while my Japanese blog skills are still catching up.

But at least I know that the learning curve of my Japanese life ensures that my brain continually adapts and rewires itself.

Joining the blogosphere in Japan means growing new neurons forever.

For one thing, you become very, very humble.

Any image of yourself as an articulate adult crumples under the fact that:

• You don’t read the language.
• You can’t follow a normal conversation.
• You are unable even to speak at toddler level.
• You are a lost ignoramus, and everyone you meet confirms it.

But if you survive your loss of identity and embrace your helplessness, intriguing aspects emerge:

• You release assumptions and expectations.
• You expand your sensitivity.
• You grow alert to nuance.
• You become aware of other people’s energies and motives.
• You learn to truly listen.
• You discover that while words matter, they don’t matter that much.
• You tap hidden reserves within yourself.
• You recognize that a sense of connection can bridge cultures.
• You develop empathy.

Suddenly you find yourself better able to understand what the other person is experiencing.

You appreciate that authentic communication can be a struggle.

You stretch your flexibility to flow with the interaction of the moment.

Many years ago, wandering around Kyoto, I lost my way.

It was only my second visit to Japan and I spoke no Japanese at all.

As I stood looking around me an elderly man approached.

- Station?

I nodded, grateful for this one word in English.

Through gestures and smiles he indicated he would accompany me there.

As we walked along he talked non-stop in Japanese.

I understood not a word.

Yet I listened to his outpouring not as a foreign language I should try to comprehend, but rather as a cadence of sounds I could accept as music.

I simply relaxed into the rhythm of his conversation and our walk through Kyoto.

And I clearly sensed his kindness, his generosity, and his willingness to take care of a foreigner in his city.

When we arrived at the station some 25 minutes later he bowed, smiled, and walked off, waving.

Each of us appreciated the moment perfectly.

So many times since then my inability to cope in Japanese has been supported by such readily available help.

While my Japanese has improved considerably, the empathic skills that first taught me the true meaning of communication remain my teacher still.