Witnessing Spring

I’m reminded of Witness Consciousness today. Spring is busting out all over the place and this makes it relatively easy to be hyper conscious of the beauty and life that is all around us. Forget stress, the economy and my messy house – it’s bursting out there!
It takes many varying practices to become more conscious. Right now I’m paying attention to nature in all of its glory. Last night I was paying attention to breath, sensual sensations and my G-spot. Later today I will even pay good attention to finishing my taxes. It’s all the same. Really.
How does one promote Witness Consciousness? There are many, many ways but I like to use the breath as a starting point. Watching my breath and breathing into my belly – softly, fully – is the practice I like. Years ago I started this practice and would remember it maybe 20 times a day. I would pay attention to how I was breathing. This got me used to remembering multiple times a day to pay attention.
That started my practice of witnessing myself. Then I moved this practice more deliberately to sex. After years of practicing and learning all about my body, my lover’s body and all the myriad ways we could pleasure each other I could finally let go of the ‘thinking’ about those moves and begin to ‘witness’ my self during sexual encounters. This isn’t about judgment or critical thinking or even imagination or fantasy – it’s about the gentle practice of witnessing. To witness one simply watches with ease and wonder what is happening to them.
When we get good at this it becomes really useful. So we’re having some great sex and I notice “ Oh, that is an interesting sensation. I’m going to breathe into that touch and see what happens.” It’s just like that, simple and useful. The ‘witness’ helps us to add on to the experience. When you get really good at this you can really explore and up-the-ante on your experiences, what ever they are. It’s a playful practice that becomes an increasingly interesting sort of arousal stimulator. And I’m using it today because of the beauty all around me – nature is arousing me and I’m using this experience to make it even more exquisite so I can enjoy the taxes and enjoy the garden and enjoy the sex and enjoy the life!