We Are Wired To Walk

Wandering as Therapy (On Wandering Part 1/3)

Happy Summer! The high season of wandering is upon us, and in honor of this, I’m going to share a short series on the topic:

1. Wandering as Therapy

2. Wandering as Prayer

3. Wandering as a Political and Ecological Act

To borrow a term that I first heard from

Jonny Miller

, my hope here is to be more provocative than prescriptive. I aim to offer ideas and perspectives that might spark a curiosity or connect with a longing in you, rather than making a statement about how things are or should be in all cases.

The snow is melting in the high country. The trail beckons. Onward…

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In a few weeks, I’m going to run ~60 miles with little more than a knife, some cornmeal, and a blanket strapped to my back.

For years, I’ve felt most myself when moving through wild landscapes on foot (or on skis). I’ve continually annoyed my backpacking partners (especially my sisters) with the desire to carry less and to be more minimalist, but this course with The Survival University will be a paradigm shift for me.

I’ll be setting aside the backpack, the sleeping bag, and the stove in search of a deeper experience of connection, rhythm, and partnership with the land. 

A truer wander.

Wandering As Therapy

Wandering has been top of mind recently. 

• The latest episode of The Emerald Podcast is on wandering, and it’s phenomenal: Let Us Sing Of The Syncretic Gods of Outcasts and Wanderers.

• I’ve just devoured the novel The Actual Star, which contemplates a primarily nomadic future society in response to widespread climate migration.¹

• I’m about to launch back in to my own wanders this summer, including leading a 6-day adventure with VIVIFY.

So, I’m feeling an invitation from life to contribute to the conversation. In this series, I’ll be exploring three main lenses on wandering:

1. Wandering as Therapy

2. Wandering as Prayer

3. Wandering as a Political and Ecological Act

What I mean by “Wandering as Therapy” is that wandering is good for us, psychologically and psychospiritually. 

Regardless of its effect on our relationship with land or the sacred, wandering helps us become healthier, happier, more regulated human beings.

I’d propose that the urge to wander is fundamental, and if we don’t satisfy it intentionally, our psyches will find other, less wholesome ways to fulfill the desire.

Wandering is Fundamental

When I confine myself to a house, a city, or a calendar for too long, I start to look for ways to break free. And I see people around me do the same. Why? 

I think it’s because wandering is inherent - we crave space for our bodies and minds to explore, to meander, to work themselves out.

But here’s the thing: if we don’t make the space for intentionally wandering, we end up finding less intentional and less healthy outlets to fulfill this yearning. 

How is it true that scrolling fulfills this same wandering desire?

I notice a similar flavor of curiosity - what’s over the next ridge? What’s a bit further down the feed? We want to move through novel terrain, images, and ideas in hope of discovering something new.

But we’re much more satisfied when we’re in a multisensory conversation with the world, wandering the earth rather than the web, smelling, feeling, hearing the wilderness pulse and breathe around us. 

There are many ways to wander, but the original mode is simple: to walk.

Ring The Earth With Your Feet

You may have heard the idea that the human body evolved for long-distance running in the heat. While there are examples of this, it seems the latest theories are deemphasizing running’s importance in favor of another uniquely human capability: walking while carrying.²

We stand upright, leaving our hands free to carry wood, meat, bundles of herbs, a loved one, a bow.

In some ways, backpacking is one of the modern pursuits most closely connected with how many of our ancestors lived - moving on foot across the land, carrying everything we need, and nothing we don’t. 

This is a reflection I consistently see in those I guide - the minimalist, self-sufficient joy of moving light across the land.

The rhythmic motion of an all-day walking pace.

The easeful conversations, full of pauses and tangents, when no one has a “hard stop”.

Our psyches crave this - moving with other humans at a human pace, surrounded by the rest of the family of life. Laying our well-used body down at night under a sky full of stars.³

No right angles, all fractals. 

Our minds bloom.

Microwanders

While I can wax poetic about the high country all day, probably neither you nor I will be headed there tomorrow. So how can we fulfill our wanderlust today?

You can wander right out your front door - with the right intention.

We can go for a walk around our neighborhood and never leave our heads, minds clouded by our plans, fantasies, and regrets. We can do this with hikes, backpacking trips, and multi-month expeditions as well (though it’s harder).

Or, we can relax the strategic mind and invite our other faculties of sensing and knowing - we can “allow ourselves to be pulled by our belly button”, as my Animas Valley mentors would say, for an hour, a day, a week. 

We can allow ourselves to become fascinated by the world around us.

We can invite in the unknown, and enter a deeper conversation with the land around us, even if it’s the land a city is built on. 

We can drop into intimate attention to the specificity and detail of the wild world.

Right here.

We are wired to walk across this Earth. My body remembers. And so does yours.

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P.S. We still have a few spaces available on the upcoming VIVIFY retreat in the High Sierra, July 20-28. If you’re feeling the call to wander, reach out via the website or send me a DM.

1. Also deeply influenced by Mayan mythology. I found this book fascinating (and I’m not surprising by the Goodreads reviews, as I’m generally willing to overlook clumsy writing in favor of world-building & ideas). Thanks to Alexa Kistler for the recommendation, and if anyone out there reads itread it I would love to nerd out on it.

2. I first ran across this idea in The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

3. I love the Sierra. You can sleep outside of a tent most nights, you can easily wander off-trail, and you don’t have to carry much. Best mountains for wandering in the world. Check out The High Sierra: A Love Story by Kim Stanley Robinson.