By Analisa Lee

When I was in my mid-30s, I heard about a friend who put a piece of wedding cake under her bed to draw a mate into her life, and then she met someone a few months later and fell in love. The superstition struck me as funny, but as a single woman who was tired of being single, I had to admit that I was also intrigued. After all, various ancient (and not so ancient) people have routinely used talismans, ceremonies, secret symbols and conjuring spells to find things in life, including love relationships.

But instead of putting cake under my bed (bugs, mice... I just wasn't sure about it), I decided to act on my great love of miracles, and make a miracle box. I took a plain wooden box and using art, photos, words, and glitter, focused its theme on conjuring several things I wanted to manifest: a career I love, a beautiful home, and a beloved. (By the way, these were all things that seemed very far away from my life at the time. I was living with my best friend in her guest room with all my things in storage; I was almost done with a master's in counseling program and unsure of what I wanted to do afterward; and I hadn't had a serious, long-term relationship in almost seven years.

Of all the things in my miracle box, finding a relationship was the most powerfully charged and exciting for me. So I carefully made a list of the characteristics I hoped for in a husband. At first I felt like I shouldn't be too greedy, so my list was short. Then I remembered that I was creating the whole ritual, so I could do whatever I wanted with the box, and be as outrageously wishful as possible.

I took down the original "My Husband" list and made a new one. Here are the first few things on it: spiritual, stable, kind, emotionally available... And, because I am a romantic, my list ended with this: "He recognizes me and falls in love."

Between the day I made my miracle box and the day I met my partner, one year and two months passed. In that time, the miracle was at work, but not at all as I'd expected. If you decide to make a miracle box or some other kind of art ritual, it's good to remember that miracles don't always look like we expect, especially at first.

For instance, after I made my box, my dating life was slower than it had been in the previous years. In fact, the friend fix-ups, chance meetings, and fun flirtations seemed to stop almost completely. What did happen was that I began to have some very clear realizations that had to do with the inner, core issues of why I was single. Making my miracle box opened a doorway within me, and the room it led me into was personally astounding. What I came to see was that I had to really and honestly embody the lover I had always wanted. This meant that I had to come to terms with some of the ways I was afraid of and avoided intimacy, was not very patient, and had danced around fully committing. Of course these were all things I'd previously criticized about the men I'd dated.

When I realized that I was not fully living up to my own list, I started to use it as a reference to keep myself honest about myself, not just to conjure a mate. I also stopped participating when my single women friends would start down a negative road about our odds of finding a good match. Instead, I started affirming out loud that with billions of people on the planet, it was only a matter of time before I found my mate. Most importantly, during that year and a half, I realized that as I increasingly lived my life with an undefended heart, I felt in love with the whole world. And falling in love with the whole world is really where it's at, whether you're partnered or not.

So with my miracle box displayed prominently, I entered a time of real personal growth, both painful and revelatory. Then, a little over a year later, I decided to move 2,000 miles to do an internship in the city where I'd grown up. After being in my new agency job for about a week, I walked into the office one day and there was a tall, handsome therapist who introduced himself. I felt my heart flutter. I knew a miracle was at work when, after a month or so of dating, he confided to me as we walked around the city's outdoor sculpture garden, "When I met you and looked into your eyes, I felt like I recognized you."

I believe in miracles, and I also believe that doing something with intention in it (like creating a ritual) can work wonders in this world of seen and unseen mystery. If you feel at all inspired, I encourage you to create a personal ritual art piece to help you focus your intentions. Here are some suggestions:

• Use materials and elements that bring you joy and truly inspire you. If you use someone else's idea, make the details of it your own, so that it speaks to and from your personal unconscious. It should light you up: your colors, your textures, your favorite images, even if they don't make sense to anyone else.

• Interact with it regularly. Keep it fresh for yourself. Dust it off, add to it, revise it, keep it in an important spot.

• Give it a title. "My Dream Job," "My Beloved Mate," "Abundance," etc. Titles help focus the energy of intention.

• Only show it to people you know will be fully supportive of your dreams.

Analisa Lee, MA, MFA, LMHCA is a mental health counselor in private practice. She loves facilitating personal growth groups for women about finding the beloved. For more info, or to contact her, please visit her website www.heartsong-wellness.com.