For my husband’s birthday, I made him a “universal manifestation box.”

The outside is painted in six colors representing the four classical elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, and the energies of the starry Heavens and deep Chaos. Each side has a sigil painted in gold. The interior of the box is painted black with the symbols for the Sun, Earth, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in silver.

The “universal manifestation box” is a representational model of the universe in microcosm. The exterior elements and internal planets are paired as polarizing opposites:

• Starry Cosmos and Deep Chaos
• Air and Earth
• Fire and Water
• Sun and Earth
• Moon and Mercury
• Venus and Mars
• Jupiter and Saturn

The box is magically charged in circle with all the energies of the universe brought to bear and set into the box. When not “active,” the box contains a piece of hematite to ground it. To use the box, one merely needs to place a symbol, picture, or written intention in the box, and activate it.

Woo-woo? Sure. But these kinds of things seem to work for me. So what could I do but offer the universe to the one I love?