[Thomas] Merton's espousal of the forest intensified in 1960 when he began to take up residence in a hermitage set on a knob called Mount Olivet.
During the 1960s Merton began to sense what "writes the books, and drives me into the woods," and celebrated gratefully the Celtic spirit that coursed through his Welsh blood.
Though ever a romantic, his engagement with nature as farmer and forester was also tactile, athletic, even sensuous.
— Kathleen Deignan, When the Trees Say Nothing