A R i t u a l S t u d y

The barn was my sanctuary. It was immaculate. I kept it that way. The stalls were raked almost hourly when possible. The tack was clean and orderly. The feeding schedule rarely varied. Not a speck of organic matter spent much time on either the ground or my horses.

Feeding, grooming, cleaning, riding and raking are not chores: they’re rituals. They are rituals revolving around purity and care of the spirit. Being in service to the horse requires this labor of love and the bodily sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears. Some rituals stem from superstition and tradition, like lucky horseshoes. Some rituals stem from experience and witness, like the daily routines around the barn that run like clockwork.

The most meditative rituals take place in the presence of the horse. Grooming and tacking up are carried out with the same precision and attention to detail every time the ritual is re-enacted in preparation for a ride. While grooming the horse, the hands smooth over every hair on the horse’s body in the same ways that a climber’s hands run over entire lengths of his ropes looking for wear before a big climb.

How can we deny that our identity is shaped by what we do? How can we separate body from ritual, and ritual from body?

We can’t.

I didn’t know who I was unless I had my horses. I didn’t think I could be who I was without them, without being with them, without working around them. I was what I was doing in the barn, and I was doing what I loved. I couldn’t separate myself from my rituals.

When looking at the lived rituals of religious practitioners and horse people, it is difficult to separate body and experience from the ceremonial aspect of ritual. There appears to be no separation of self and performance. Ritual shapes us, and we shape our rituals. By looking at the medieval women who experienced their personal mystical experiences, we see how ritual and devotion mesh so closely (inseparably) from emotion and the sensuous body. In Carolyn Walker Bynum’s medieval context and discussion of medieval women mystics, these women mystics have become part of the word made flesh. These women moved body up to the realm of godliness and away from the often dirty image cast up on women’s physicality. Horsewomen too, move the body into positive light, as the body becomes a way of knowledge and communication with their beloved horse.