Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly,
To whom we lend fate from the border of fate.
And if they are sad about how they must wither and die,
perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret.
Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus (XIV)

We talk about “survivors” of abuse instead of “victims”, because the former seems to buttress the empowerment we believe to be vital to healing.

But who exactly survives abuse? Surely not the same one as before.

Abuse cleaves us from our power. Victims know this. Retribution tries to redress the imbalance, but it cannot. Not because it heaps wrong upon wrong but because integrity, once broken, cannot be restored. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…

Healing arises in knowing that emotional pain bears witness against the violation, not as a call to avenge it, but as the heart’s regret, grieving transgressions.

Wholeness cannot be taken away because we are woven into something of which we cannot be dispossessed: the web of being that connects us all by its invisible threads.

Healing dissolves pain into this, like salt into water.