Founder Letter: Stitching the Soul Back to the Body

“I hurt myself today, to see if I could feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.” - Trent Reznor, lyrics to Hurt

Dear Rosies,

Have you observed this paradox: sometimes people push their bodies to extraordinary extremes, mastering intense physical disciplines -- extreme sports, rigorous yoga, demanding diets, contortion -- yet can’t actually feel their bodies' subtle energies or name their feelings. An intense physical focus can sometimes mask a disconnection from the body's wisdom. This intensity can be driven by a need to feel something, anything – as if through sheer physicality one might smush the soul back into the body. 

The disconnection from the body can happen for a lot of reasons. One is the denial of the body’s essential sacredness. 

For much of human history, humanity celebrated the body and its cycles through pagan rituals and indigenous practices. These rites were imbued with a deep reverence for the body as the vessel and abode of the divine. Fertility rites and sacred sexuality in temples, for instance, were not seen as mere physical acts but as profound spiritual engagements. Indigenous traditions, too, honored the physical existence as intertwined with spiritual reverence, recognizing the body as a microcosm of the cosmos.

Since then, across many centuries and cultures, the body has been demoted, dismissed, demonized, shamed, pushed away and looked down upon. The roots of this separation can be traced through religious, philosophical, and social shifts that prioritized the spiritual and the mind over the corporeal, resulting in a cosmology which sees the material world and the spiritual world as separate.  

This split has caused a big mess of unnecessary suffering. 

The body after all is profoundly intelligent, it encodes the accumulated wisdom of all of our ancestors in our genetic codes. It speaks through sensations, emotions, and intuitive hits, guiding us towards what is healing and away from what is harmful. When we demote the body, and forget to listen to it, and dominate it with the mind, we lose so much of this genius.

Reconnecting with this wisdom involves slowing down, tuning in, and responding with care and respect. Practicing being present with one’s emotions, understanding one’s physical needs, and treating oneself with kindness. For women, especially, this may also mean  reclaiming the parts of the body often ignored or shamed.

In my own journey, I have found that practices like breathwork, meditation, and mindful movement are essential. They create space for the soul to be felt in the body, for the body to become a vessel of spiritual presence rather than just a machine to be optimized and pushed.

Stitching the soul back to the body is a practice of love, patience, and deep listening. It’s about moving from a place of punishment to one of reverence, from disconnection to wholeness. Engaging in movement that feels joyful rather than punitive, nourishing it, playing, allowing rest. 

I am inviting a complete restoration of the body to its holiness, and ourselves to wholeness. I think it's time the incarnation takes its place as equally sacred. 

To joyful embodiment across all ages and stages of life, from tip to toe, heart to hand, spirit to bone.

All love, 

Christine

XO

Christine Marie Mason

Founder, Rosebud Woman

Host The Rose Woman Podcast on Love and Liberation