The Great Remembering

A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble

Dec 03, 2025

“We are lonely for our more-than-human kin… but the land is lonely for us, too. The land loves us, and we need that conduit to love the land back. Out of that, anything is possible.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer

forest tree photography — Photo by Christian Buehner on Unsplash

Before we dreamed of the land, the land dreamed of us.

It shaped the curve of our hands to fit the fruit it would one day offer.

It taught the wind our names long before we learned to speak.

Now we live as if that dream has been forgotten. We rush through days of noise and neon, calling the world “resource” instead of “relative,” believing the pulse beneath our feet to be dumb matter rather than ancient memory. But listen closely: something in the soil is stirring. Something remembers.

Robin Wall Kimmerer calls it the Great Remembering. She says the land is lonely for us—that the earth aches for our return to relationship. This loneliness is not sentimental; it is metaphysical. When reciprocity breaks, the pattern of creation itself frays. The forest and the human heart both depend on exchange: oxygen for breath, attention for beauty, gift for gift. “All flourishing,” the philosopher Donna Haraway writes, “is mutual.”

Listen to Kimmerer in her own words…

To say that the land is dreaming us is to invert the hierarchy of human exceptionalism. It is to confess that consciousness did not originate in us but through us, that mind is not the property of matter but its relational awakening. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin envisioned this long before ecological language gave it form: “Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.”

Kimmerer invites us to imagine what it means for the earth to love us back, not as metaphor but as reality. “The land loves us,” she says, “and we need that conduit to love the land back.” If that is true, then our current ecological crisis is not simply about carbon or policy; it is about broken relationship, about love interrupted. What the biosphere suffers is not merely depletion but heartbreak.

Thomas Berry wrote, “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.” Communion requires consciousness, presence, participation. To recover that participation is to be dreamed awake again, to feel the world’s gaze upon us and realize that we are seen, known, and needed.

Can you feel it—the way the wind presses gently against your skin, not as weather but as greeting? The way a tree regards you, steady and patient, as if it knows a secret it longs for you to recall? You are not an orphaned species. You are kin.

The world has not forgotten us. It is dreaming us still, each sunrise a retelling of our origin story, each birdcall an echo of the promise we once made to live in reciprocity. To wake up is not to see something new; it is to remember what has been waiting all along.

That is what holiness has always meant: not ascent to heaven, but descent into belonging. Not escape from the world, but reunion with it.

If we are willing to be dreamed again—if we can love the world the way it already loves us—then even now, even here, the story can begin anew.

We are in this together,

Cameron

Reflection Questions

Where in the natural world do you feel most at home? What happens in your body when you return there?
How might your daily choices reflect kinship rather than ownership?
What practices help you listen to the more-than-human world?

A Prayer for the Day

A Prayer For the Great Remembering

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Spirit of Life,
You who speak in rustling leaves and running water,
open our hearts to the chorus of creation.

Teach us to listen for the small voices—
the moss, the bird, the breath of soil.
Let gratitude be our language,
and tenderness our law.

When we forget our kinship, remind us gently.
When we hurry past beauty, slow us down.
Let us live so that the world, seeing us,
might say, “There goes one who remembers.”

Amen.

Spiritual Practice

The Conversation of Belonging

Step outside and greet the first living being you notice—tree, insect, bird, wind.

Acknowledge it as a relative: “Good morning, cousin.”

Spend a few minutes in quiet exchange. Notice what changes in you.

Offer a word of thanks—aloud or in silence.

Before returning inside, ask yourself: What might it mean to live as if this exchange never ended?

Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…

January 6, 13, 20, 2026 - Protest and Action Chaplaincy Training with Rev. Anna Galladay. This live, online training offers a framework for providing compassionate, grounded spiritual care during protests, advocacy gatherings, and social movements. Learn more here.

January 15, 2026, 7-8pm EST - FREE Online Webinar: When the Internet Hurts: The Hidden Online Dangers Facing Our Teens and How Faith Communities Can Respond, Join me in conversation with Sharon Winkler, survivor parent and nationally respected youth online-safety advocate. Sharon’s son, Alex, died at age 17 after experiencing cyberbullying and algorithmically targeted pro-suicide content. Since then, Sharon has dedicated her life to helping parents, educators, and faith leaders recognize online dangers and build safer communities for young people. Register here.

February 11th and 25, 2026 - Join Our “Building a Culture of Leadership Within Congregations” Cohort facilitated by Rabbi Benjamin Ross and me! A two-session course for ministers and faith leaders ready to strengthen how their congregations and ministries identify, develop, and support leaders. Learn more here.

July 19-24, 2026 - Join me and amazing co-facilitator, Victoria, on retreat in the back-country of beautiful Wyoming. The Art of Wilding is a 5-Day Expedition for Women Leaders. We will spend the week reconnecting to nature, exploring our inner landscapes for change, and engage the wisdom of spiritual teachings. Click here to learn more.

I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.

If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.