↑The onbashira (御柱) are four wooden pillars that stand on the four corners of local shrines in the Lake Suwa area of Nagano Prefecture, Japan, the largest and most famous of these being those that stand on the four shrines that make up the Suwa Grand Shrine (諏訪大社Suwa Taisha). Onbashira are replaced every six (traditionally reckoned as seven) years, in the years of the Monkey and the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac during the Onbashira Festival (御柱祭Onbashira-sai), in which huge trees are cut into logs and then transported to the shrines by sheer manpower. Festival participants ride the onbashira as they are slid down the mountain and dragged to the shrines where they will be raised upright.
↑Medoteko (目処梃子, also medodeko) (Picture): large, V-shaped branches attached to the onbashira during the Upper Shrine of Suwa's Onbashira festival. People ride atop them as the logs are dragged downhill and raised up (video example). The medoteko originally served to help bring the onbashira across the sandy/muddy terrain of the Yatsugatake foothills, where the Upper Shrine's onbashira are obtained. By contrast, medoteko are not attached to the Lower Shrine of Suwa's onbashira due to different terrain conditions (video example).
↑Tsutsugayu Shrine Ritual (筒粥神事Tsutsugayu-shinji): One of the "Seven Wonders" of the Suwa Grand Shrine, performed during New Year's Day in the Lower Shrine of Suwa. A ritual in which reed tubes are placed in a mixture of water, rice and azuki beans and are then cut open. The amount of gruel that has seeped into the tube foretells the success of certain crops associated with each reed during the next harvest. The final reed is thought to predict the state of the world during the coming year.
↑The Misayama Hunting Shrine Ritual (御射山御狩神事) or the Misayama Festival (御射山) was one of the four annual hunting rituals of Suwa Grand Shrine, held during the 26th to the 30th of the seventh month of the old lunar calendar in specially-designated hunting areas in the mountains known as Misayama (御射山). During the Kamakura period, it was Suwa Shrine's largest and most important festival, attracting thousands of people (mostly of the samurai class) across Japan, who participated in the ceremonies. The festival - now in a highly reduced form and no longer involving hunting - is still currently held every year during the 26th to the 30th of August.
↑The Clear Pond of Kuzui (葛井の清池): One of the "Seven Wonders" of the Suwa Grand Shrine. On the night of December 31st, tools or offerings used in the shrine over the previous year are thrown into the pond of Kuzui Shrine (葛井神社) in Chino City. It is said that on the morning of the next day, January 1st, they rise back up in the Sanagi Pond in Shizuoka.
↑The objects sunken into the pond on December 31st rise back up on January 1st, linking the end of one year to the start of the next. Much like the "torus" in the spell's name.
↑The Heavenly Drop of Water from the Hōden (宝殿の天滴Hōden no tenteki): One of the "Seven Wonders" of the Suwa Grand Shrine. Three drops of water are said to fall into a small building in the main compound of the Suwa Upper Shrine (上社本宮Kamisha Honmiya) known as the Tenryūsuisha (天流水舎) every day, no matter what the weather is like. This water is known as Otensui (お天水 'heavenly water'). Crops watered with it will not die, and using it in prayers for rain ensures the prayers' success.
The Tenryūsuisha in the Upper Shrine of Suwa, Suwa, Nagano.