The fields, rain, sun, sky, mud, clay, wind, and fire are all masters of sacred wisdom, and worthy subjects of contemplation.

–Kathleen Deignan

Deignan makes the above statement in the introduction to When the Trees Say Nothing, a collection of Thomas Merton’s writing on nature that she edited. Merton’s desire for greater solitude led his Abbott to make him “forester,” which entailed restoration of the woods near the monastery. This work, in turn, led Merton to become a competent naturalist and transformed his experience of solitude from that of “privacy for intellectual pursuits” into “an opportunity for embodied engagement with a whole community of wisdom in silent participation in the vitality of living things.”

Makes sense to me.