Walking has always been a form of therapy for me, and as these tracks in the dust at the farm can attest, I’ve been doing a fair amount of it lately. They also attest to the fact that we are much in need of rain.

“Solvitur ambulando” — a Latin pharse which means “it is solved by walking” — was asserted by Saint Augustine of Hippo, perhaps borrowed from Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope.

We all have problems to work through in life, and we all go about working through those issues in different ways. For me, it seems that throughout my life one of the primary ways that I have sought to work through difficult times has been walking.

As creatures of two feet, walking has always been a large part of our lives. In our earliest days as biped hunter-gatherers, walking equaled subsistence. We walked to find what we needed to live.

In many ways, that still holds true today. However, I must admit that I much prefer gathering muscadines and morel mushrooms while “still hunting” through the woods, rather than simply strolling along the aisles of Walmart while gathering Kraft mac and cheese and Cinnamon Toast Crunch into the shopping cart.

I’m not sure when walking became a therapeutic option for our species. Perhaps, it was early on in our development. I picture Grog after a bad day at “the office” returning home empty-handed from the woolly mammoth hunt and facing the reality of bare cupboards in the cave.

The walk home gave him time to think about what’s really important, time to appreciate the blessings of family, and, maybe, time to think of creative ways to break the news that it would be stone soup again tonight. Walking as therapy had begun.

My point is that walking has always been a part of who we are, and, for me, part of my coping mechanism. I come by that naturally. In fact, I would say it’s inherited as walking always seemed to be my mother’s go-to activity for “figuring it out.”

She often says that mowing the yard was her therapy until I was at the appropriate age and took over the lawn maintenance role. However, what I remember is that she was always walking at some point during the day.

Perhaps, aside from the fitness benefits, it provided her with the downtime that she needed to clear her mind after a long day in her role as beauty shop therapist (stylists and salons didn’t exist in the country in those days, only beauticians and beauty shops).

Clearly, walking is a part of who I am and who we are as a species, so it came as no surprise that I found myself doing just that this past weekend. I was scouting the newly-thinned timber for a couple of new stand sites for deer season, and, as I said earlier, working through some things.

During my peregrinating about, I thought about our son, Dan, and his 500-mile-plus walk across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. Over the course of those miles, he made some major life decisions about his future.

Strangely enough, I also found myself thinking about a walking story from our country handyman, a man whose name shall remain anonymous.

The handyman (let’s call him Handy) is, as I have found to be the case for many people in his profession, a true journeyman. He can do anything. He is also a novel to himself.

For instance, Handy was once, no joke, “accidentally” shot in the head while fishing. He has also been bitten by a copperhead and spent a little time in the “graybar hotel” for, from what I can gather, growing a patch or two of what we used to call the “devil’s lettuce.”

He told me that walking had actually helped save his life during his time in the “stony lonesome.” In fact, he said that he walked enough miles around the yard of that facility in Texas to have walked back home multiple times.

All those miles spent walking cured his ailing back, a pain that he had dealt with for years, and gave him time to ponder his mistakes and decide to make some changes in his life. Handy came back home a changed man and walking was a big part of the reason.

Clearly, the benefits of walking are both physical and spiritual. In that light, the Augustine quote becomes much more meaningful. One of my favorite poets and writers, Gary Snyder, also has much to say about the benefits of walking in his book of essays “The Practice of the Wild. “

According to Snyder, “Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance of spirit and humility.”

He goes on to add that, “Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.”

Wholeness seems to me a wonderful goal to stride toward in the daily walk of life. With all the problems of the world, wholeness and the struggle to be whole sound to me like wonderful life goals.

At one point this past Sunday, G said, “maybe next weekend we can go on a hike.” My response? A resounding, “Solvitur ambulando!” As Augustine said, “It is solved by walking,” and I’ve been looking forward to that trek all week.

Until next time, here’s to walking through life’s problems, to learning something about ourselves along the way, and here’s to seeing you out there perambulating in our great outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.