Paige and Jonathan’s story would sound like a fable if you didn’t know it to be true. All real Love stories are like that. To be sure, the tale of their shared Love started sometime long long ago, the details shrouded in time and mostly lost to human memory. Like all of us breathing and loving today, Paige and Jonathan are here because others loved deeply in the past. Our common history is written in the language of Love. Truly, the love and tenderness we see and share today is only possible because our forbearers recognized and trusted in its beauty and wholeness. Love is a cross-cultural endeavor; it transcends time, space, and way of life; it’s one of the great ‘universals’ that Socrates and others sought. This fact is often overlooked or underappreciated. Our first kiss in wedlock—many of you will witness it—is perhaps only possible because two Minoan lovers kissed in Mochlos four thousand years ago. We are all a culmination of pyramid love, zigurrat love, Trojan romances, Incan affairs, ancient Maya marriages, Roman flings, medieval nuptials, and modern matrimonies. Love is Whitman’s powerful play. It’s Wolfe’s stone, leaf, and unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. Love is the fire that has been transferred forward for millennia and is now—for the lucky ones who seek and fuel it—a beautiful blazing sun, the star a couple orbits forever.

Paige was born in one of the world’s major cities; Jonathan in a small railroad town few have heard of. Paige was beautiful from the gun; Jonathan cute but bookish. They carried on their individual young lives in a mostly upright way, not knowing it, but both sharing a love of travel and an uncommon appreciation of beautiful moments. By high school, Paige was a total babe with a great head on her shoulders and a knack for design; Jonathan, still a bit on the nerdy side, quickly developed into a run of the mill romantic-artistic-bicycle racing-type. In those days, Paige would be daydreaming of her fabulous life in New York as a fashion designer and about the unnamed man who would fulfill all of her hearts desires (Jonathan!); Jonathan would make nightly pilgrimages around downtown Southern Pines and gaze at the moon or stars or passing trains and wonder where she (Paige!) was on this planet. She’d never stepped foot in North Carolina at that point, poor guy. It was in this time that Jonathan developed a profound friendship with a certain redheaded dude. Ben would one day, with the help of his wife, change Jonathan and Paige’s life forever. But back then, these men were still boys exploring the wilds of the American South with a ravenous appetite for natural beauty and—let’s keep it real—huge ass fish. Knee-deep in the sea one full-moon night, Jonathan looked down from the tip of his fishing pole and saw the watery refection of the moon between the breakers. The water was dark and restless and the moon’s face was framed with vibrating shadows that looked like dark curly hair. It was in that moment, in that reflection, in his heart, that Jonathan caught his first glimpse of his wife. It was unmistakable. Time passed, as it does.

In college, they chopped and stored wood for their eventual fire. Paige traveled wide, enriching her mind and romantic heart. She crossed many rivers during this time, over the Schuylkill, the Delaware, the Connecticut, over the Thymes, the Seine, the Hudson, the East, finally touching on the banks of Chiti, the powerful universal Consciousness. During this time Paige began a practice in Yoga. She would later use it to change many others lives for the better. College gave Jonathan a gas-can of prose and romantic ideas to pour on his preciously kindled moon-love for Paige, though they’d still never met.

After college, the lovebirds flew about the globe, often just missing the other. Her train would leave as his was arriving. Alone by the shore, in the city at night, under the canopy of a southern forest, they would sense each other, like the sound of a vehicle deep in the distance that you know is there but have no details about. Time danced along.

Finally, their heart’s trajectory found an intersecting path. Paige had just established what would become the most remarkable and nurturing resource on the eastern seaboard for expecting and new mothers, Mama’s Wellness Joint, and Jonathan, was continuing his PhD research. On a fateful May evening, Jonathan just passing through Philadelphia on his way to Greece, stayed one night with dear Ben and his wonderful wife Laura (and their handsome baby boy, John Earl). Laura, an oracle of Love, played matchmaker and arranged a double date for you know who (see picture left!). It doesn’t need to be said, it’s understood, but we’ll say it anyway: it was Love at first sight. Her smile. His laugh. The way she moved. His eyes. Her eyes. The moon between the waves. After dinner, Jonathan walked Paige home. They smiled the whole way, laughing and talking. By their side, their fingers touched and they found themselves comfortably holding hands like a long established couple. They passed her childhood home, the house she just bought, and stopped into her business. That night they were somewhere between fresh acquaintances and a couple long-time married. It was all a bit surreal and totally magic, Love magic, the seed of true Love… except for that little detail about him leaving the next day for a three-month stint in Greece! As they were saying good bye outside her apartment door, he asked if she would join him for coffee before his flight the next day. She said she couldn’t do that, but he could help move really heavy furniture up and down flights of stairs with her. He said okay. The night was a cool bowl of lilac darkness on his walk back to Ben and Laura’s.

The next day Jonathan met Paige at her business and also met her mother, Beverly. Jonathan and Bev found an instant connection too. They were in the pastures of heaven talking about water chemistry. The furniture moved, magic moments shared, Paige gave Jonathan a ride to the airport. It should have been heartbreaking—to find Love only to watch it fly away—but they both knew it was just the beginning. The summer was full of letters and postcards and long-distance ardor.

Three months later at the airport, Paige picks up a longer haired, sun-kissed version of the man she met in May. Then dear readers, it was on! They crammed fifty dates in one. Every minute was like a second and at the same time a year. The nights seemed somehow bigger, the mornings clearer, and when they touched all the mornings and nights and days just disappeared, poof like that. There was no time, just the two of them. Laughs, excitement, comfort, serenity, passion, Love people, LOVE. It was all over for our dear couple, it had only just begun. Time may have passed, but they didn’t know it.

Rings and stones soon entered their brains. One snowy December night, they sloshed their way over to the Oyster House on Sansom. A dozen beautiful half-shells appeared before them, and Venus in the shape of a golden ring waited in one. She saw it, he took knee, asked the most important question of his life, she happily agreed, while being serenaded to an old Sinatra tune. Paige’s closest family and friends had all secretly gathered to see the moment, and then they feasted like queens and kings on all the sea’s bounty. A perfect night, which led us to this next one: June 27^th, 2015.

Please join Paige and Jonathan in Crete for the biggest moment of their lives. It will be their ceremonial union, but also a huge celebration of the power of Love. The journey might be too much for some, but don’t fret, they have celebrations in Philadelphia and Southern Pines planned too. If you come to all three you get a prize.