Another Rider on The Camino de Santiago, Guest Post

Reverend Laurie Brock tells us about her ride along the Camino de Santiago this summer. She is the Rector of St. Michael the Archangel Episcopal Church in Lexington, KY. Her animal companions are Nina, an American Saddlebred, Evie, a rescue pup, and Jilly, “An elder little terrier lady whose owner died and now she gets to hang out with me!”

She is the author of Where God Hides Holiness: Thoughts on Grief, Joy, and the Search for Fabulous Heels (Morehouse 2012), Horses Speak of God: How Horses Can Teach Us to Listen and Be Transformed (Paraclete Press 2018), God, Grace, and Horses (Paraclete Press 2022), and the upcoming Souvenirs of the Holy (Broadleaf 2025 scheduled).

She rode the Camino with Grace, who was kind enough to share her story earlier. [Riding The Camino de Santiago, Guest Post]

Website, Rev. Laurie Brock
email, Mtr. Laurie Brock <Rector@saint-michaels.org>
Facebook, RevLaurieBrock
Instagram RevLaurieinLex
Video Paraclete Press: Meet Laurie and Nina!

Welcome Laurie.

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I didn’t have a holy agenda.

I didn’t have a deep yearning to walk the Camino.

I didn’t even know much about the Camino, honestly. I knew it was a pilgrimage that several friends on social media had done. I knew Martin Sheen made a movie about it. I knew it ended at a Cathedral in a small town in northwestern Spain.

I knew I wanted to ride a horse.

Photo: The arrival

When a fellow Episcopal priest emailed me about riding horses on the Camino de Santiago, I at first demurred. I had all the good reasons not to go. It would be expensive (although it’s cheaper than a few days in Disney World). I didn’t feel very spiritual about the whole pilgrimage thing (pilgrimage seems to be the new hip thing to do to flash one’s spiritual credentials). And my relationship with the name St. James unearthed memories of an abusive work situation over a decade ago.

But horses…

God loves to use horses to move me from my own stubbornness and even fearfulness into something more. God loves to be present to me in horses.

Photo: MalaRiena

So I booked the trip, sent the money, and found myself letting a bay mare named Margarita or Maria or Mala Reina. Her name, like the presence of God, was a bit ephemeral. I’d asked several of the grooms her name, and got as many answers.

My favorite horse to show is Maria, and like Maria, when I went to mount Mala Reina (because let’s face it, making a holy journey with a Bad Queen is exactly me), the groom said, “She doesn’t like to stand still, so…”

Mount quickly. I knew this. Because my Maria at home in my Kentucky is not a fan of standing still either. She has shit to do. And you better ride her with the respect due her, since she’s taking time out of her day to partner with you.

Mala Reina had that same energy. Her shit to do was to carry me and my self, my doubts, my what am I doing in Spain on a horse, and even my confused grief through Galician forests, across highways, through Spanish towns, and on a pilgrim trail walked by millions through the ages, and just let me be carried.

Photo: On the way

Because the truth was, I was carrying confused grief. My father, who, to quote David Sedaris, was a character but not a good man, died two weeks before I landed in Spain. I was carrying the stress and lingering exhaustion of being a priest in a pandemic and the after-effects of all things church. I was carrying the shift and changes of life, and all the stuff we carry because we are human.

Horses have frequently reminded me that I don’t have to carry so many things alone. God created partners in this pilgrimage of life to help us carry our things. For a few thousand years, horses have helped humans carry loads, pull wagons full of stuff, and even carry humans to ease our burdens of movement.

For a week, the Bad Queen reminded me to let her carry some of the stuff I’d carried for too long.

Photo: Roadside pilgrims

So she carried me from a green meadow outside the border of Portugal and Spain to the cobblestone plaza of the Cathedral of Santiago. She carried me over paved roads and let me be dissuaded from my images that we would ride alongside walking pilgrims and through constant pastoral settings. We did do that, but we also trotted along busy roadways, over highways, and through car parks to get to the next pathway. Life moves across landscapes. Some of them are stunning, some of them are functional, and some of them make us question our choices. But they all are holy in their own peculiar ways.

Photo: Water break

She carried me through Galician towns where families were leaving church and waved joyously at our parade of pilgrims and horses as we passed through and noted her annoyance at the giant papier-mache puppets across the street from her. Faith, after all, invites us to stop and notice the things that are unusual and let joy bubble up in us. Faith also reminds us to notice the things that are weird and give ourselves permission to trot away from with some determined speed.

Photo: Camino thru town

She carried me through small villages with lanes that wound between houses built over centuries adorned with flower boxes, by agricultural fields of grape arbors and corn and all manner of crops that still fed families. Cows, horses, goats, sheep, and more than a few dogs filled with fury in their five-pound bodies watched us pass their land, still producing the vineyards and crops and lifestyle that too much of the world has left to memory. We passed hórreos made of solid granite, rectangular buildings that centuries of Galicians have used to store grain up and away from rats and humans and others who would steal and thieve and appropriate. At first I wondered if they were mausoleums. If they had been, I would have been mightily impressed at the way the Gallicans buried their dead – in mighty fortresses of granite rather than the uniform dullness of too many American cemeteries.

Photo: Morning meadow

She carried me through deep Spanish forests and reminded me to breathe deeply to let the smells of ancient soils packed firm by thousands of feet walking to something that kept them putting one foot in front of the other, the medicinally elegance aroma of the leaves of eucalyptus, and the fragrance of heavy blackberries sagging from hundreds of vines fill my lungs and soul. From her height, I could reach out and pull off leaves and berries. The leaves I tucked in between my saddle pad and saddle and pressed a few in my Prayer Book. The berries I ate, with memories of my sister and me eating more than we collected in the forests of our childhood home. Notice when you’re above it all and can reach things from this height, and let them pull you in all the holy places.

Photo: Berries & horse

I wondered so many times during my ride if I should be praying more. Or at all. God bless Grace who opened her Prayer Book every morning urged me to pray with her. We began our days with traditional prayers, ones I’ve prayed for decades. Mala Reina led me in the prayers I’ve prayed for the last 12 years or so on horseback. She let my body remember that every moment on a horse is a prayer – a way I remember my union, my love, my very soul that speaks to God simply because I’m riding a horse and tells the rest of my busy brain to be still and know.

Our final morning came with a ridiculously early saddle call because horses must arrive in the Plaza del Obradoiro (the plaza in front of the Cathedral) before the pilgrims begin arriving on foot. We gathered in what looked like an abandoned lot, mounted up one last time, and rode past some abandoned buildings, a Starbucks, through a city park, and into the old city. A few twists and turns on small lanes, and there we were.

Photo: our group.

We all arrived, our band of pilgrims brought by our horses, all of us with our varied reasons for coming, for making the pilgrimage. We took photos. We cheered. We kissed our horses. We hugged each other. Grace and I were greeted by Mother Anna, the chaplain at Santa Susana’s Church in Alameda Park in Santiago. Her enthusiasm at greeting two pilgrim’s she’d never met reminded me that faith celebrates all things. Later that day, we three women, all on our pilgrimage through life and ordained life, celebrated the Eucharist in an ancient church filled with a ragged, messy beauty, much, I think, like us.

Perhaps the reasons we make a pilgrimage doesn’t matter. God never has needed pure intentions or even right ones. Perhaps God just needs us to be willing to move, to take steps forward or backwards or somewhere. God needs us to stop and rest. God welcomes our times of questioning and complaining (I discovered my limit on a horse is 8 hours – at 8 hours and 1 minute, my knees tell me they’re done). God welcomes, maybe even hopes, that we remember this whole messy, ragged, beautiful journey of life and faith is a pilgrimage.

Photo: Shell & horse ears.

Practical matters:

While some of our party had little riding experience, this is a journey best made by people who are comfortable at a walk and a trot on a horse. I ride 2-3 times a week all year, and a couple of the days were exhausting for me. The owner did quite a good job of matching riders to horses. Also, wear a helmet. It’s not required, but given the terrain, it’s a very good idea. The company, Camino Santiago a caballo led our pilgrimage. You can book through them direct (tell them we sent you!). We booked through Walk the Camino. DON’T DO THIS. They were a waste of money and caused nothing but problems for us.

Grace and I stayed in Santiago for a couple of days to explore – so worthwhile. And, if you’re a priest, you can get free admission to some of the Cathedral exhibits. When we shared that we were indeed priests, we were met with of excited annoyance, but we got the discount. Several of the tours do sell out, so just FYI if you want to see the Portico of Glory (which used to be free for pilgrims to walk through, but now costs – Grace and I had opinions about that). I’m willing to chat with anyone thinking about making this pilgrimage by horseback – just message me on social media!