What is a wound – and what does it reveal about our humanity? This book explores the wound not merely as physical or psychological injury, but as a rupture in relationship: a tearing apart of what was once whole. Pain is its signal – disconnection its consequence. Yet beneath every injury lies a deeper mystery. Are human beings wounded simply by virtue of being human? Is there a primordial wound that precedes all others – and if so, how might it be healed?

These questions lie at the heart of this volume, which emerged from an international conference on biographical work held in Dresden in 2015, a city profoundly marked by the devastation of war. At a time when violent conflict has returned to Europe, The Wound’s themes feel urgently contemporary. Drawing on Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on ‘The Mystery of the Wound’, Christine Gruwez explores the wound as both the consequence of destruction and the source of healing. Without a wound, there is no power to heal; without evil, no possibility of redemption.

Gruwez connects these insights to central questions of our time: vulnerability, crisis and the conditions of incarnation itself. She offers readers a key to understanding their own relationship to suffering and for approaching others inwardly and creatively. The book thus becomes a source of inspiration for counselling, biographical work and for all those seeking pathways from separation toward healing, reconciliation and transformation.

CHRISTINE GRUWEZ, born in 1942 in Kortrijk (Belgium), studied philosophy, classics and Iranian studies at the University of Leuven. After graduating, she worked as a Waldorf teacher and lecturer in teacher training in Antwerp. Numerous research trips took her overseas, particularly to the Near and Middle East. As an author and speaker, she travels the world giving lectures and seminars. Christine Gruwez lives in Antwerp.