KIWI YAMABUSHI
Kia ora Koutou, I'm Tim Bunting, The Kiwi Yamabushi. I am a practicing Dewa Sanzan Yamabushi Japanese mountain ascetic (What's a Yamabushi?). I have been living in Yamagata, Tohoku, north Japan, since 2010. Since 2016, I have trained as a yamabushi under Master Fumihiro Hoshino through Daishobo pilgrim's lodge on Haguro-san, and through Dewa Sanzan Jinja. If you want to find out more about how you too can train in the ways of Shugendo, check out Yamabushido.jp (tell them I sent you).
In my spare time I write stories about the overlooked side of Japan, namely up here in the Tohoku region. I write a daily blog, have a newsletter with over 1,000 subscribers, have a YouTube channel also with over 1,000 subscribers, and am on most socials as @kiwiyamabushi.
I am currently on a mission to summit and document all 100 Famous Mountains of Yamagata.
I am available for online consultation, public speaking in both English and Japanese, and I am able to guide you on The Dewa Sanzan mountains by working through Yamabushido.jp or DewaSanzan.com. As a Master Yamabushi and the creator of Dewasanzan.com, I believe I am the most knowledgable native English speaker on these three mountains.
POPULAR ARTICLES
My newsletter articles are free to read on Substack for a week, but you can just get them sent to your email for free if you subscribe. After that, they are only available to paid subscribers. However, articles that get more than 1,000 reads I put here so everyone can enjoy them. All of the articles can be found here.
DAILY YAMABUSHI
Here are some of my Daily Yamabushi posts. Get more here.
3.11 taught us a lot. Basically, that there is more to life than worrying about ongoing disasters. By no means am I saying this to be insensitive, but when you’re pummeled with sad news nonstop for days on end, it gets a bit repetitive. 3.11 taught me that it’s ok not to be on top …
Words can be spoken in different ways, different tones, different stress, different volumes, different accents, different pitches, different combinations, different statuses, and each different way includes a different identity. This identity is something that you can’t just make up by stringing words together, and it’s this identity that both makes languages human, and languages culture. …
This was a goodie. The Coffee Skill Australians Think They Know But Really Don't. When it comes to coffee, beans matter. But if you're drinking anything with milk in it, generally the flavour of the beans is muted to the point of being non-existent. I actually feel the same way about espresso though, such as …
KIWI YAMABUSHI
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Sakata City, Yamagata, Japan
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All photos my own unless otherwise stated. Contact for more.