When I wrote about this forest 16 years ago in my book, Supernatural and Mysterious Japan (reissued under the new title, Japanese Ghost Stories), Aokigahara was already known as Japan’s suicide forest.

I experience Aokigahara as a place of beauty and mystery and powerful energy doorways.



How was your brief visit to Aokigahara today?

How did the month of April unfold for you?

As Henry David Thoreau observed, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

Celebration or connection is in the eye that beholds.

Commiseration or complaint is a matter of the heart’s perception.

For me, in this year’s natural rhythms, April was a month of celebrations.

Celebrating ALLIA:

My friend Orna Ross, the Irish writer and poet, launched The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLIA) at the London Book Fair on April 18. The launch was followed by an inaugural meeting of the Irish branch in Dublin on April 24.

Orna is a best-selling novelist turned indie publisher who founded ALLIA as a global, non-profit, collaborative collective of independent self-publishing writers.

I am delighted to be the community builder for ALLIA in Japan and you can see for yourself what the celebration is all about by visiting ALLIA’s website at allianceindependentauthors.org

All the best to you and ALLIA, Orna!

Congratulations to my dear friend Hans for celebrating 84 years of firmly sensing nature’s rhythms and cycles. Hans, also known as Dr. Johann G. Laetz, serves as the wise and compassionate Oracle for Energy Doorways.

Happy Birthday, Hans!

A pat on the back to myself on the formal approval of my doctoral dissertation. I am now Catrien Ross, D.Th.

Given my cross-cultural background, it is not surprising that my spiritual perspective is broad and deep, apart from any organized religion or creed.

I celebrate intrinsic spirituality and healing, awareness of nature’s rhythms and intelligence, and women’s wisdom.

Congratulations to me!

Celebrating April:

As in … the little wild boar who decided to make a home with us.

As in … the Australian client who made a first trip ever to Japan to take sessions in personal energy dynamics with me and the deep shifts that unfolded at the foot of Mount Fuji.

Celebrating All Things Spring:

As in … picking baby ostrich fern from the banks of the mountain stream alongside the house and enjoying the fresh, mineral tang of the curled fiddleheads.

As in … harvesting an abundance of shiitake mushrooms from our logs, with warm memories of Barbara from Scotland, who helped prepare the logs three years ago.

As in … savoring the scent of plum blossoms in the early morning air.

How about your celebrations of April and all things Spring?

And how will May unfold for you?

How connected with your own inner nature do you feel today?

Your inner nature expresses the ebb and flow of your personal rhythms.

You rush forward to meet life or you withdraw – often in confusion and doubt – according to the timing of rhythms expressing within you at any particular moment.

Your personal cycles and rhythms reflect the greater natural world communicating through you.

Your sensory experience is actually Nature connecting with nature within you.

Since 2007 I have been teaching and writing in Japan about Natural Energy Wisdom,™ the self-growth process I originated.

Designed to empower and unfold your inner, innate wisdom, Natural Energy Wisdom™ is the result of my personal study of natural cycles and rhythms experienced through living for over 15 years in the mountains of Yamanashi, Japan.

This self-growth process arises from the wisdom of your inner nature interconnecting and interacting with the greater world of Nature that supports you and sustains you.

It also honors your natural creativity, your natural essence, as well as your natural intelligence.

At the same time, Natural Energy Wisdom™ teaches you to become aware of the communication you continually have with your body, with your mind, with your spirit, with natural energy flows.

Your natural sensations and feelings are important because they constantly call your attention to the situation or focus that aroused those feelings in the first place.

Your good feelings, for example, indicate your continuing natural survival.

You learn what is healthy and supportive for you.

Natural sensations were not invented by human beings.

Each natural sense you experience is actually Nature speaking to you and through you.

As you recognize what is essential for your survival, you also learn what does not support you and sustain you.

For example, becoming aware of your inner nature while consciously connecting with Nature gives you a very special feeling of self-acceptance and compassionate love.

As your awareness deepens, in your personal relationships and situations you more and more begin to look for this love and acceptance you sense within Nature and within yourself.

Little by little, you learn to transform or release relationships and situations that do not reflect this deeper self-esteem.

So connecting with your inner nature and Nature means connecting with the deepest and wisest part of yourself.

I see Natural Energy Wisdom™ as a natural bridge integrating body, mind and spirit.

As such, it works both with the intrinsic intelligence of the DNA in the cells of your body, and also with the greater intelligence of the cosmos.

Yet nature connection is not an intellectual exercise you simply read about in a book or listen to at some lecture.

At its heart, Natural Energy Wisdom™ encourages you to be very real, very vital, very practical.

Because you become physically and spiritually grounded, you empower the active now, the present reality of your actual life.

One critical pillar of Natural Energy Wisdom™ is physically connecting again by going outside into the natural world.

As you replenish your connections you rediscover your natural spiritual connection.

Connecting with Nature is thus a profound way to unfold yourself spiritually.

You find yourself expressing your natural spirituality in your daily life through increasingly healthy integration of the many aspects of your body, mind, spirit.

Through Natural Energy Wisdom™ you rediscover for yourself that cosmic energy and your personal energy are one and the same.

You stimulate the joy of engaging your nature within and without.

And you affirm the certainty of empowering your natural energy flows.

This article is the first in a series of blog posts about Natural Energy Wisdom.™

My self-growth process was introduced in my book, Hikari no Uzu, published in Japanese by Energy Doorways in 2009.

Now, as I begin writing about Natural Energy Wisdom™ in English, I would love to hear your comments and insights.

How do you feel right now about your own inner nature and the ebb and flow of your natural rhythms and cycles?

Are you resonating with the mysterious energies of the heart on Valentine’s Day, today?

My blog post celebrates some Valentine’s Day inspiration with you.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky – Jelalludin Rumi

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving – Kahlil Gibran

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens – Carl Gustav Jung

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The holiest of all holidays are those/Kept by ourselves in silence and apart/The secret anniversaries of the heart – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart - Thich Nhat Hanh

And how about this heart-filled video from the Institute of HeartMath?

Happy Valentine’s Day from the foot of Mount Fuji!

Catrien Ross
February 14, 2012

Has someone or something needled you lately?

What hidden truths about yourself did your reaction reveal?

Inner sensitivities can be powerfully provoked by the jab of an unwelcome goad.

Feeling needled can trigger painful reflexes.

That’s because what needles you the most is often what you most need to learn.

The person or issue causing you the greatest discomfort is time and again the essential pinprick that stimulates your deeper self-growth.

You hamper your own growth by hostility towards to the very needling that can teach you more about yourself.

Well, an annual celebration in Japan today offers some unusual encouragement.

Translated into English as the Festival of Broken Needles, Hari Kuyo is a memorial service for broken, rusty, and otherwise worn-out needles held on February 8 (or December 8, depending on the region).

Discarded needles and pins are brought to shrines and temples where they are blessed for the years of usefulness they provided.

They are then stuck into a slab of tofu and released from service.

Hari Kuyo traditionally celebrates the day when seamstresses in Japan were permitted to enjoy a rare holiday from their daily duties.

The softness of tofu absorbs, not only the sharpness of needles, but also the pent-up sorrows of a life spent sewing for survival.

Hari Kuyo presents the opportunity for a moment of relaxation and gratitude:

A welcome awareness that a life filled with needles might not be so hard after all.

Sticking needles into tofu symbolizes a shift in perception that transforms your habitual reaction to the provocations that needle you.

Whenever you take what needles you personally, you amplify your pain.

Your life lesson becomes that much more difficult.

But habits are simply energetic responses that have settled into fixed patterns.

Changing the vibrational frequency changes the pattern.

This change in frequency starts with a shift in your perception.

How would it be if you stick what needles you into soft tofu?

Rather than be goaded yet again into your habitual response, you choose instead the softness of acceptance.

As the needling finds its mark within, you bless it for the hidden truth it triggers.

You thank the pinprick that stirs an unresolved issue into your conscious awareness.


I am not a seamstress, but Japanese acupuncture is part of the energy medicine and spiritual healing services at Energy Doorways.

The two photos show used acupuncture needles in tofu, along with some colorful Japanese pins.

Receiving acupuncture treatment is another way of transmuting the stab of needles into a positive experience that redefines the flow of your energy patterns.


By accepting and thanking what needles you, you free yourself from the perspectives that confine you.

Your hidden truths can surface to transform your pain.

Like the participants in Hari Kuyo today, you hold the power to release the fixed patterns and worn-out needles that no longer serve you.

So next time someone or something needles you, why not have some inner tofu ready?

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?