Picture courtesy of Kyodo/Japan Times
Thanks to Gabi Greve for pointing out an article in the Mainichi Daily News, which tells of Suwa Lake freezing over. This prompted an ancient fortune-telling rite in accord with local lore that the kami Takeminakata (son of Okuninushi) crosses over the frozen surface from one of the Suwa shrines to visit his bride housed in another. (For further details and a report on Suwa Shrine, see here.)
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Harumiya, part of Suwa Taisha
NAGANO, Japan (Kyodo) — A Shinto ritual was held Monday on the frozen surface of Lake Suwa to predict the year’s social situations and the prospects for crop harvests and weather from a streak of elevated ice cracks, a natural phenomenon observed Saturday on the Nagano Prefecture lake for the first time in four years.
A priest from the nearby Yatsurugi Shrine and its devotees checked the exact location of the streak on the lake and performed a purification rite. The predictions will be made later at the shrine by comparing the data with past records.
The phenomenon, known as “omiwatari,” occurs after ice on the surface of the lake repeatedly expands and contracts due to the difference in temperatures during the daytime and night. As a result, the cracks on the ice rise.
In mythology, omiwatari is believed to be the path taken by the male god at the shrine on the southern coast of the lake in visiting the female god at the shrine on the northern coast.
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(The above comes from Mainichi Japan February 6, 2012. See also Japan Times article.)
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