Askesis and the Eros of Distance

Where the Real Spiritual Combat Lies

An inspiration came to me as I drove along Mulholland Highway in the afternoon sun. It’s a somewhat lonely section of road that runs past the King Gillette Ranch somewhere between Calabasas and Agoura. I turned onto the highway, and immediately in front of me was a motocyclist — for some reason, I felt, a young woman, not on a new or fancy bike or a racing bike, but something homely and old fashioned, as if she were a character in some midcentury adventure memoir about rough travels on a motorcycle in the foothills of the Andes.

She was not dressed for the part — a denim jacket flapping in the wind, a red backpack like a schoolchild’s, a white helmet. But she was going fast. I also enjoy going fast. Sometimes when I am alone on this stretch of road I take it at unreasonable speed. I felt her pace as an invitation, so I followed, keeping a safe distance, but staying with her, just at the limit of my comfort. I saw her taking the turns aggressively, leaning into them.

All of a sudden, I felt: I should let her go, I should just let her go. I felt her joy in the road, in speed, in the day; I was feeling it too (listening to Mari Boine helped), but I felt it magnified in her, on her bike, in the wind, closer to the road and the sun and the hills and the sky and the wheeling birds.

And I felt — I could catch her, but I want to let her go. She is so alive and so beautiful, I want to let her go. She is feeling the fierce bliss of skill and speed, she deserves the road alone, the road deserves her alone, the hills deserve her alone, God deserves her alone, it is better if that flame is alone, burning. I eased off, let her race ahead out of my sight.

I wondered: does it ever happen that an animal predator suddenly sees the pure, vital beauty of its prey shining out, a bright star of being, bright against the sky — does an animal predator ever see this, and let its prey go? I know immediately, no, it doesn’t. No, an animal would never step back from itself in that way, never be enraptured by the sheer beauty of another creature for which it has an appetite. The sheer beauty!