Long after the Secret has risen in popularity and fallen flat with the overwhelming disappointment of scores of people who didn’t find success, I learned about manifestation. The purported Laws of Physics would seem to deny the possibility of something being created out of thin air, and yet here we are. By creation, as the Bible describes it, or some big bang as theorized by scholars who can’t accept anything they themselves can’t prove. There is a big disconnect as to how it all came to be in the first place.

As a child, the first born to a young couple that had not yet found their financial footing in the world, I did not have much in the way of possessions. Yet, I wanted things, so I made them using my imagination and whatever I found to be available. I made a purse out of a powder box and ribbon. I made dolls with pine needles, thinking this must be what Indigenous children may have done for playthings. I continued to make “something out of nothing” into my teen years. As an adult I became even better at it, using raw and discarded materials to create amazing useful and beautiful things. But, is this manifestation? Well, yes, in that my creations began with a thought, which is where Creation begins. The thought of filling a void with something we want to make a more pleasurable experience is how anything comes to be.