If there were a perfect world where love trumped the dollar, there would be just you and me.

We will wake to the dawn, each holding each other close in the warmth and the scent of our very human bodies, before we brave the winter world outside of our throne, our lovers altar.

Shivering, we will light the morning fire together, our hands entwined as we strike the flame that keeps us alive, warming our fresh water for tea. We will sit and drink in silence, watching the blue flame glow yellow and give a silent thanks to everything that has aligned so that we can have this one moment here, together.

We will lay our mats side by side, waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to warm us as we begin our morning practice together. Whether we move through asana together with each breath, or go at our own pace, in our own rhythms for the day—we practice together.

Two channels of the same divine. We will not gaze at each other. We will, standing side by side, gaze forward.

Our morning meal will be silent.

Listening to the birds and the hum of the world as it wakes from its machinery slumber. We will greet this dawn in the modern world, two full hearts in the middle of the city. Two full hearts resonating with nature, exemplifying the natural curve of the arc of time.

The first break in the silence will be a laugh you always want, to bring me joy to defy the darkness of the cold winters night. You will make me laugh because you know only joy matters on this road towards death.

We will drink deep and we will practice and make music and laugh because this is our morning and we will sprout our roots from this morning and grow, two seeds, grasping for the opportunity to flourish and bloom in the soil we are given.

We will dig our toes deep in this moment, in our morning, in our home, and then we will take leave of it, in order to do our work.

Our days will vary greatly though the years, each of us fully invested in our own lives and work in the world.

Writing, designing, teaching, learning.

We will travel far and near, together and apart, but we will always return to this moment.

It is our daily work that fills us, you with your technology and your smile for the world bringing together solutions for people, bringing the community together with each project, each presentation. I with my quiet chamber of creativity, wrestling the demons from my wounds to shine forth in words and wide swaths of color on the canvas—my internal world made manifest to delight and provoke the inner workings of my observers.

Our daily work is needed in this world and we are eager and ready to feed others because we are fed on the full cup of our morning practice, together.

This early morning moment when we decide, each day, to commit our very lives to each other and for the evolution of the world.

The world is meant for lovers.

We are the lovers of the world.

We are more than just the moments spent with a stranger, wrestling for communion after a night on the town. We are more than the status quo, stepping each rung on the hierarchy as per cultural norms. We are not the norm. We understand that while humans quest for true love, we have found it and it is not what they told us in film!

We will stretch and grow into our love because we know that the only truth is change and that life is short and made for living.

If I had not found you my life would have still been wonderful, but it is because I found you, only you, that my life is more of a challenge, deeper than I could have ever imagined.

I let go of it all in order to love you, knowing full well that every moment I have to let you go, so that you can grow into yourself and your purpose here. I know that one day I will lose you forever, so I hold you very loosely but I will never let go.

If we do decide to have children, they will not be the norm either.

They, like us, will struggle with meaning and existence, wonder at the indemnities of the planet and wonder how to liberate us from suffering. They will be infused with the bodhisattvas vow long before they enter our lives, our bodies.

When we feed them their morning meal, their eyes heavy with dreams and resting in comfort, we will invest our entire lineage with hope, entrusting them with the knowledge that one day too, they will wake up with the dawn and see each day rise anew. They will trust us when we say we love them and will never leave them.

Even if we cannot promise the never leaving to ourselves.

Because I know one day that you will die. Or that you will no longer love me. That we may not be able to grow past this point and we may never get to this morning. That the days and hours of darkness and struggle for healing will have worn you thin, or you will just want to quest for love in someone elses garden.

I will let you go because I love you, because I know that I cannot but cup my hand to hold water and drink, but that all rivers run to the ocean and I am not your keeper to try and change your tides. I let you flow.

I love you and  because I know that I am not long for this world and before I go, all I want is to see your smile, to touch your face.

To look into the eyes of our beautiful children and breathe into them the small wisdoms I have gleaned from this short run.

Breathing in every sunny day spent in the fresh mountain air and green grass, playing and laughing and striving to thrive. I will inhale once more, breathing in all that I have been given time to do and experience, giving pause to each soul that touched mine, and I will exhale it all into one final leap of faith, into the arms of the void, that she may envelop and nourish me once more.

In an endless universe, I found you, only to lose you again.

I would not change it for the world.

I have lived that I may know the truth of love. I may die because I know I am a part of it.

And we always have this morning.

So let’s light the morning fire, make our tea and roll out our mats side by side, and walk together just a little while before our little bones are dust.

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Author: ​Valentina Kai

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: flickr