Manifestation Magic: The Etching on the Wall

The Farmhouse

I have, on a wall in the entrance of my house, an etching of house on a slice of tree bordered with bark.

It is not a large piece, maybe 9 x 12. The etching shows a simple farmhouse, and a few lines suggest a path leading up to it. Those are the only lines on the slice of yellowed pine. Any other element of design is left to the viewer’s eye, as they are essentially suggested by the rings and knots of the wood on which the etching was done.

I found this etching in a small shop in Côte des Neiges down the street from the first apartment Grant and I shared. Grant had just left behind a dingy studio, and I ended six years of jumping back and forth between attempts to live at home and couch-surfing in questionably safe conditions. We were both still studying, but we also worked, so we could manage the reasonable rent in a decent building.

For the first time in a long time, I had an address. I took pictures of the apartment door with its wrought iron number, of the black dial phone on the kitchen wall, and of the groceries packed in the fridge. Life was good. Here, we could form roots.

Once we had acquired basic furnishings, I decided to decorate. I had discovered the small shop around the corner from our apartment, and I still remember the name: Pot Pourri. Behind the narrow belled door were two floors were full of treasures: rattan and bamboo furniture, wind chimes, hand made pottery, colourful rugs, flower pots, and many other items it would take too long to list. 

During one of my frequent forays into this jumbled shop, I spotted the etching on the wall. It was out of the way, behind a pile of small tables and shelves…waiting for me to find it. The simple scene drew me in. In the markings on the wood, I could envision myself walking up the path to the little farmhouse. This would be my home.

I hung the carving on the wall of the entrance in our apartment.

Nearly five years later, now married, we decided to buy a house. After several months of searching and hesitating, we settled on a small split level in a town we had never even heard of: Pincourt. Far from the sirens to the Jewish General, a long way from the crowded ethnic shops of our old neighbourhood, we found a little house on a large treed property that desperately needed some love. Naively enthusiastic, we bought it.

I hung the carving on the wall of the small vestibule. This house didn’t look anything like the one in the picture, but it was our home.

Five years and two children later, the little house was crowded. The tiny kitchen left no room for the high chair, the miniscule bathroom made it difficult to bathe the children, and the street had widened and become too busy for a household with a baby and a toddler. We decided we needed a different house.

We walked the streets of our town looking for a new home. One day, by happenstance, we saw a house for sale on the corner of a street we had just discovered. As I stood on the street gazing up at the house, I was immediately transported to the path in the etching on my entrance wall. I knew this would be my home.

We moved into the little cottage a few months later. Over the years, the organic lines of our property were planted with gardens, the  path defined with stones and borders, and its rooms filled with our lives.

Now, are children have grown. Grant and I still live in the little cottage in the middle of the gardens we have grown, and we have repurposed its rooms to suit this new chapter in our lives.

Yet, the little etching still graces the wall to my front entrance. It has welcomed us for 46 years, in three homes, a concrete testament to the power of manifestation. 

Never underestimate the creative power of inspired dreaming.