Exercising With God

October 25, 2008 by Mark T. Rafter

We have this really cool elliptical trainer in our TV room. One of the ways I “incentivise” myself to exercise is to watch movies while I am laboring away on the trainer for 30-40 minutes (I love movies … there is a very important success skill buried in this behavior that I will talk about in a future post … think about on your own if you’re interested).

I was watching “No Way Home” the Martin Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan yesterday. This particular scene was Dylan playing solo acoustic guitar on Desolation Row (to give you an idea of what a Dylan nut I am, I actually wrote an English paper on this song in High School). Just as with The Gates of Eden, Visions of Johanna and others, DR is classic Dylan at the height of poetic power.

I heard the opening lines:

They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town

and I thought, “My God, where does that come from?” I answered my own question: My God.

That was it. This was Dylan tied into the muse, the superconscious mind. He said in later years that he doesn’t really believe that he wrote some of those songs (Van Morrison has said similar things). This is why getting in touch with that Higher Power is so important for each of us to rise the height of our potential.

Which gets me back to exercise. After this little epiphany about Dylan, I realized how often I come up with good ideas and answers to things that have been unsolved by my conscious mind when I am exercising. It is likely a combination of things: endorphins released by the physical activity, the fact that you can get in that zone where you are physically so present your chatting, mental, egoic self is not a factor.

This lets the subconscious take over and open the connection to Everything and the Source of inspiration and genius.

Try it, you’ll like it!

The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

-Dylan, Visions of Johanna