Roly and the Bone Goddess

Our dachshund, Roly, really, really loves raw marrow bones. You might say that he is obsessed with them, and if you know dachshunds, you know that a dachsie obsession is like no other. He maintains a continuous prayer to the Bone Goddess, and I am she.

Though at most, he gets one, and rarely, two a week, Roly wakes up almost every day with the notion that today's the day for a fresh bone. He demonstrates the kind of unrelenting faith that most can only envy.

Roly is definitely a subscriber to the "sweat your prayers" school. No quiet, private prayer petitions or silent affirmations for him. An expert user of body-English, he really knows how to get the deity's attention and raise the energy for manifesting his desire.

Sometime after his post-breakfast tour of the yard and subsequent nap, he begins his campaign by giving me the look. It is an odd combination of open-faced, dewy-eyed hopeful gaze and dictatorial summons that seems almost to be shooting little energy hooks in my direction.

The look, of course, is accompanied by powerful mental telepathy. It would be very hard to miss what he is lobbying for. I easily receive the visual of the fresh, raw meaty bone segment he is beaming my way.

Then, if he thinks I am receptive at all, he begins the dance, a quivering whirl down the hallway toward the kitchen with Lassie-style summoning head gestures. You know the kind—in Lassie's case, it means: "Come with me! Old Farmer Jones has fallen down the mineshaft and needs his heart medication!" Of course, Roly's prayers are not so purely altruistic.

If he believes he's actually hooked me, he may even begin to squeak and whistle and plant himself in front of the refrigerator, shifting from one front paw to another, leaving no chance that I won't know what he wants. His ability to think affirmatively and to practice proactive joy and advance gratitude is to be admired by any student of the Law of Attraction.

Now—you should know that I love giving him and his sister dachsie, Lilah, their marrow bones. It's a delight to see them so excited and happy (if you can call being utterly blissed out "happy"), not to mention, it keeps them totally occupied and quiet for hours in what we call "the Bone Zone." Well, at least it does Roly. (Lilah's eccentricities are another story.)

I had planned to give them a bone today, but the darkening sky and loud rumble said a big storm was brewing, and I decided I'd rather not have a pig-headed dachshund determined to stay outside with his bone while winds were howling, lightning crackling, and rain and hail pummeling. Because as much as I love to give Roly a bone, I love Roly far more, and his total well-being is paramount for me. I will give him his bone tomorrow when conditions are more appropriate.

I have been looking at one sad-sack dachshund ever since he figured out that today was not bone day. When I tell him "Just wait till tomorrow," I can tell he is not comforted. But I, the wise Bone Goddess, can see what Roly cannot. I know that I will give him what he wants when the time is right.

As I contemplated this today, I began to see the parallel between our human desires, Divine Timing, and the wisdom of our God-Selves. Just as it is my joy to give Roly a bone, it is our God-Selves' joy to give us that which we desire. (And when we are as clear and expressive of our desires as Roly is, there is no mistaking what they are—but the truth is, I know he wants a bone even without his active campaigning!)

Sometimes we get so focused on and so caught up in what we want at the human/ego level, we are disappointed if it doesn't show up when we think it ought to. We may even think it is being withheld arbitrarily, or that we haven't made clear enough what we desire.

Despite how it looks from the Roly level of things, the Bone Goddess knows what he wants and is absolutely going to come through—but only when the timing is right. And so it is with what we desire and our own inner Bone God/Goddess.

Like Roly can't comprehend the weather issue the way I can, neither can we comprehend the myriad of things that can't be seen from the level of consciousness at which we're operating. We just need to know that, if we make our desires clear, the all-knowing, all-seeing Bone Goddess who loves us, completely and unconditionally, and has our highest level of well-being in mind, always comes through when the time is right.