Solvitur ambulando — “It is solved by walking.”
~St. Augustine

These last weeks have found me walking. And walking. And walking. As I prepare for the pilgrimage on a part of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, I am training by walking several…sometimes many…miles a day. Walking through neighborhoods I know, along the rivers that flow near our house and through parks, around lakes and nature centers that provide shade in the heat and uneven terrain that I think might be similar to the paths I will eventually walk. I have spent considerable time thinking about the act of walking.

Anyone who has ever watched a young child begin to join mind and body in the pursuit of movement knows the effort, the challenge, the trial and error that goes into this act most of us do without thinking. To be present to that push and pull of muscle and matter as a young one tries over and over again to stand and then to thrust forward, first one foot and then the other, is a powerful thing to witness.

This walking I will be doing with a dear friend will likely challenge us in ways we have yet to imagine. While we will have readied our bodies as much as possible, we will no doubt be, at times, exhausted and even ready to give up. We will be present to landscape both foreign and breath taking and will also be confronted with the mundane images of people living ordinary lives, doing ordinary work. All the while, we will be walking until we reach the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where pilgrims have been arriving for hundreds of years, some having walked many months. Why?

I am sure the reasons for walking are as many as those who walk. Many are coming to a place they hold sacred because they believe the bones of St. James, a follower of Jesus, are buried there. Others come to remember…who they are, who they might believe God to be, how they want to be in the world. Some are offering some kind of penance…for what they have done, what they have left undone, what they might not even be able to see. Still others walk for the sheer challenge of it, to say they did it, to be more healthy and fit for having walked so many miles.

Last week I found myself walking alone for nearly four hours through Lebanon Hills Regional Park. That is a long time to keep yourself company! As I walked along I remembered this quote supposedly made by St. Augustine: Solvitur ambulando — It is solved by walking. It led me to think about all the people who have walked the Camino and other pilgrimage routes, many in the pursuit of a solution. A solution to a big life question. A solution to a simple one. A solution within a relationship or a vocation or career. A solution about how to be engaged in the state of the world or clarity to see a situation with more wisdom. The simple act of walking can bring about many solutions.

Of course, within moments I began to think about the people I know and care about who have lost the ability to physically walk. Those who must now use a walker or cane to help them find balance or those whose forward motion in the world comes in the form of wheels that have become the extension of their legs. My prayer is that each is still able to embrace the metaphor of St. Augustine’s intention, that whatever form their forward motion takes gives them a sense of moving toward the solution they seek.

I have some thought about why I am walking. I also trust I will discover that there are probably reasons for this pilgrimage that have been hiding deep within me someplace. What I do have is a faith in those that have seeded the path before me with their prayers, their intentions, their exhaustion and exhilaration. Their footsteps will become a part of the journey and will, I believe, lead me to whatever solutions the Universe may be holding out.

Perhaps this is the way it always is whether on an ancient pilgrim path or the sidewalks of our cities. We are held by the footsteps of those that have gone before urging us to walk until we reach the solution we seek.