They say love means never having to say you’re sorry. But what if that popular aphorism from the 1960’s is wrong and that love precisely means having to say you’re sorry? Can an apology release the trauma, grief, rage and disfigurement arising from past abuse? But what if the perpetrator does not apologize? Can you still resolve or reconcile the trauma and hurt? How?

These are some of the agonizing questions that the artist, playwright, performer and activist Eve Ensler, now known as V chose to face to resolve her own relationship with her abusive late father. She did it by writing a book, The Apology.

In writing it, she tried to imagine being her father. Who was he? What allowed him to do such terrible harms? Could she free herself from this prison of the past? Could she free both of them?

Theme music is co-written by the Baka Forest People of Cameroon and Baka Beyond, from the album East to West. Find out more at globalmusicexchange.org.

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This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.