Jenna Milner

Have you seen the documentary film My Octopus Teacher? In it, Craig Foster develops a relationship with an octopus.

Although an octopus is simply a sac of fluid, it can respond to circumstances with impressive shifts of appearance. It can take the form of a muscular sprinter, a barnacled rock, a predatory cloak, or a sensually smooth membrane. An ancient intelligence suffuses these ingenious metamorphoses. 

As Biodynamic practitioners, we discover that the human body permits an equally dramatic shapeshifting drama. Ancient, archetypal forces enable the body to take shape according to the needs of the moment.

As for some of the “shapes” available to us? We call them Tissue, Fluid, Potency, and Dynamic Stillness.

When I want to sidestep the technical sound of those words, I call them Ground (Tissue Body or Initiatory Neutral), Flow (Fluid Body), Spark (Potency Body), and Source (Dynamic Stillness).

Biodynamics is an evolutionary springboard that gives us language for (and facilitates) this full spectrum of natural, embodied qualities.

Each unique universe of body is like a bead along a necklace — a nodal point along a spectrum. A human body expresses each universe in an identifiable pattern. Each new pattern brings us into a wider dimension. Each pattern features its own distinct and recognizable attributes.

As a professional field Biodynamics emphasizes rhythms (or tempos) as a primary attribute.

We also speak about substance; for example, tissue, fluid, or potency correspond to Cranial Wave, Fluid Tide, and Long Tide. These correlate with spatial dimension as well: going from more cramped and dense (a part of the body), to more spacious and porous (the fluid body), to vast and limitless (the potency body or universal body).

What I want to emphasize is that these shifts are not simply incremental but qualitative. Evolution along the Biodynamic spectrum does not simply involve getting slower and bigger. The Biodynamic path describes a series of leaps from one orbit to another — from one universe to another.

In this blog I explore one such shapeshift: going from Ground to Flow. This is a fundamental metamorphosis described by our field. It marks the threshold of Biodynamic work.

We reach the Ground (in technical terms, the Neutral) when the whole tissue body comes together in a state of inner quiet, wholeness, embodiment, and receptivity.

In a Neutral, the fragments coalesce into a single unit of function. This makes possible an immensely powerful shift, because the Neutral is the toehold to Primary Respiration (Fluid Tide or Long Tide). In fact, the definition of a Biodynamic Neutral is “freedom to respond to Primary Respiration.”

If our Neutral grows into a Stillpoint, this indicates that we can expand to inhabit our fluid body (at the least). Then the body appears to go from a clod of earth into a pliant wad of warm caramel. It takes up the space between the Midline and several feet beyond the skin.

The skin now evaporates from awareness. Like a trapdoor above an underground stream, the physical body conceals the subtle fluid flow that swirls beneath and beyond the skin. When we fall into the flow of fluid, we leave behind the world “above.”

(It’s not really above. This is just a metaphor. The fluid is beneath the skin, in that it coexists with or actually supersedes the skin; we just have to perceptually tap into the dimension that the fluid occupies.)

It is hard to describe how great is the leap from Ground to Flow. In the full expression of this new enfoldment, you occupy the interior of the body and yet you also inhabit the area surrounding the body. You therefore take up more space. You also possess new qualities, including a new substance (the fluid body) and a new tempo (slowed down). 

However, this description does not capture the heightened emotion and even the beauty that is evoked by this bodily transition.

In the Biodynamic approach, we facilitate an exchange between the forces of health and the unresolved patterns (that is, inertial structures). The embodied landscape of Flow represents the most physical level of this exchange, yet some of us will experience the process in spiritual terms. 

We might feel, for example, how the Flow — expressed in a rhythm called the Fluid Tide — carries the blueprints of our being, connecting us with the divine source out of which we emerged.

Through this process, we experience how our physical existence is constantly being regenerated.

By following the subtle movements of Primary Respiration (in this case, the Fluid Tide) back to their source, we can experience them arising out of the empty ground of stillness. Although mysterious, this communion with the source of form renews our access to health.

Here’s an example. My client Lacey came into my office, wildly spinning with words and emotions. She suffers from several chronic illnesses, and her body is often locked up and uncomfortable.

During the table work that day, she experienced the landscape of Flow, as a beautiful, sensual Fluid Tide came in.

“Are you doing this?” she asked. I wasn’t doing anything.

Lacey later described, through tears, how magical it was to experience her body “doing what it was designed to do.” She had felt:

“an absence of illness. I could have gotten off the table to do what needed to be done. It was the most powerful thing that’s happened to me in ten years. My body felt like it was healthy. If I was a religious person, I’d say it was an act of God. I have a lot of history — ten years of wanting to be well. This was the first time in ten years my body said, Oh! I’m healthy! The work created this state of undeniable health. It was so emotional to feel that way.”

Lacey went on to compare her mind to a jockey riding the “racehorse” of her body, attempting to whip it into doing what she wanted. During the session, she felt this adversarial stance melt away, as her body emanated the message, “I’ll take care of you, I’ll carry you.”

When our body expresses the level of Flow, we experience a fundamental condition of health, which is available no matter what unfavorable symptoms are also present. Osteopath James Jealous has described this as the “fluid body that cannot lesion.”

Although it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can overcome our undesirable symptoms, it is always an enriching, favorable experience to remember and inhabit this aspect of embodiment that cannot be damaged.

Developing a sustained relationship with Flow — our “healthy horse” — can require time and discipline. But in moments when we feel safe and let down our guard, the experience is easier to access. 

I’d love to hear about your experience of the shapeshifting body. How do you feel it? How do you recognize it? What do you make of it? How do you achieve it?