Backflash!
Your dreaming back body's got moves
Welcome to Vera Monstera! Movement is Everywhere. Step into an embodied world where life springs from the power of play and slow-osity. What’s that? It’s like velocity, but instead of speeding in one direction, we dive into spacious, internal rhythms. No destinations, but lots of sights to see. It means the world that you’re here!
My kid said “backflash” when she meant “flashback.”
She was telling me a story with a flashback when I got stuck on her head-turning misnomer, “backflash.” Backflash! Isn’t that more fun and dramatic? Simply flipping the words within the word made it pop like a puff of smoke. And there you are! Time traveled and everything.
Let’s go back.
I jotted down “backflash” because it was so good. And then, a few weeks later, it clanged in a good way with some notes I had about the Dreaming Back Body.
Dreaming Back Body—that’s my made-up term for the side of us we can’t see without spinning like a dog chasing our tail. We might catch a glimpse, but then we’re all twisted and what’s going on back there anyway? Well, we’re talking about the back of our skull down to our heels. Our shoulder blade wings. The points of our elbows. The backs of our legs and arms. The inner caves of knees we can’t see. And, yes, you weirdo. Even your butt. There. We said it. Giggle, giggle. Pull it together!
This other side of us can’t be seen, only sensed. It’s more easily forgotten, but what is it we always say about sharpened senses? We can have a deeper experience with things sensed and not seen. What happens when we sense the integrity of our spine? Live into the skin on our back? Breathe right where we are instead of inching forward. Is it intuition? The knowing-all-along at the end of the fairy tale?
You see? I mean sense? You feel me?
That phrase “Dreaming Back Body” emerged out of the chaos of running my mouth while teaching dance or yoga or both. Teaching movement was like writing and re-writing in real time, on the fly. Scrawling tangled notes, but the paper is the air and there’s no eraser. There was too much to say, and it got away from me. There’s something slippery about reaching for thoughts while in motion. Often it was a wild fail because I was patting my head and rubbing my tummy and chewing gum and it couldn’t be done. Many times I called out “right” when I meant “left.” But sometimes the reaching for words unearthed something.
Enter Dreaming Back Body. No, wait. Before we define that, let’s talk about Forward-Thinking Front Body.
We could also call it Forward-Leaning, Forward-Pushing, Forward-Shoving. The Front Body can be a bit of a bully. Maybe you see that, too. The Forward-Thinking Front Body is always in a hurry. The furrowed brow, the puffed out chest. The parts of you that are ready to crush life and check things off the list. These are the parts that make lists to begin with.
Your toes face forward. This is how your knees bend. You lean into the wind, swing your arms forward like a train on a track. Forward-Thinking Front Body needs no introduction because we are almost always in that mode of being.
Let’s be clear. It’s a good thing that we have our Forward-Thinking Front Body. How else could we run away from predators or catch the bus or jam on the gas and go, go, go! How else could we make plans and get shit done? But here’s what happens when that forward motion gets out of control. Momentum overtakes you. And then you’re just another bear on a bike doing tricks that you don’t care about because you should be out in the woods scarfing down salmon and scratching your back on a tree and scaring humans away so they don’t put you on a bike in the first place.
Whoa. Slow down. Let’s get back to the business of backs. We are not 2-dimensional. We are fully embodied beings. We have a backstory. The sleeping, dreaming part of us that we never see. What if we could wake it up?
It’s leaning into your heels and waiting through the end of the breath. It’s—oh—the knowing behind your ears. The chills up the back of your neck. The tap on your shoulder from the universe. Hey, what’s up? It’s everything you see with your eyes closed.
Your Dreaming Back Body holds space. I was going to keep going with that sentence, but actually, that’s what I want to say. It holds space. For anything you need that’s a little under the surface. Memories, ideas yet to be, the courage to carry them out.
When we allow ourselves to be 3D, to live into all of our full dimensionality, maybe that opens the door to other dimensions as well.
Portal! Backflash!
All of this dimensional talk reminds me of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a trippy little novel that was required reading for my “Math from a Humanistic Perspective” class. Reading for math? That’s just my speed.
And let’s not forget your Smart Side Bodies. They get left out, too. Imagine you’re wearing tuxedo pants. You look amazing. Then imagine that the stripe up the side of your pants glides all the way from ankle to armpit. There you go! Now you can sense from the sides, too. Listen up! They have things to say. And feel!
What emotions are drummed up in all these bodies within your body? Is your Front Body raging? Anxious? Envious? Are your side bodies closing in on you, overwhelmed? Lean back. Sit back into your hips. Put weight in your heels. A great word like haunches works here. Ease into them. Open the door to more complexities, a little compassion. Curiosity. Play. Wonder.
I’m thinking about dancing together. Improvising like puppy play. How do you dance with someone when you don’t know where they’re going from one second to the next? You breathe into your Dreaming Back Body. You backflash into your full self, embodied, tingling, tangible. And you move, time-traveling together.
My mouth is agape at the activity of this piece! I'll bet it's fun to hear it out loud. But even in my head, "Dreaming Back Body", "Forward-Thinking Front Body", "Smart Side Body" -- I can feel them!