Purification, harae, runs through nearly every level of Shinto shrine practice, from the simple hand and mouth rinsing an ordinary visitor performs at the temizuya before approaching the haiden to the more elaborate misogi practiced by priests and dedicated practitioners, historically involving standing beneath a waterfall or immersion in cold water, and the formal exorcistic harae rites priests perform for individual visitors seeking purification from misfortune or before significant life events. A priest addressing the kami on a visitor's or community's behalf recites norito, formal ritual prayers composed in an archaic liturgical register of Japanese distinct from ordinary speech, following set structural patterns of invocation, statement of purpose and request that have been transmitted with relatively little change across a very long period. Shrines host matsuri, festivals tied to the agricultural calendar, the local kami's own mythology, or historical anniversaries specific to that shrine, and a major matsuri can draw participation, through portable shrine processions called mikoshi that carry the kami symbolically through the surrounding neighborhood, far beyond the shrine's regular worshippers to the wider local community regardless of individual religious affiliation.
Because Shinto in practice coexists comfortably with Buddhism for most Japanese people, who may visit both shrines and temples without perceiving any contradiction, a shrine's role in community identity is often as much about marking and renewing a place's specific local and seasonal life as it is about any single, exclusive statement of religious belief.