Up: [[Compass]] Created: 2025-12-26 Updated: 2026-01-05 Although I gave up on resolutions a decade or more ago, I’ve tried all sorts of other plans at the start of each new year. Word of the year works for me as does setting an umbrella intention, under which can nestle sub-intentions for each season. Nevertheless, there has always been a chasm that quickly develops between my intentions and the actions I take in alignment with those intentions. Either I make a lengthy list of things to do and then feel as if I’m on rails and give up when I’m not perfect at it, or I try to be open and spontaneous and I forget all about aligned actions amidst the habits and routines of the day. This year, things changed. I moved my new year from January 1st, which I’ve never liked (too much hoopla and unreasonable expectations) to December 21st, the start of Yule. More significantly, thanks to a lot of inner work, I’m really clear about what matters most to me, and what actions reflect those values. I also have a much better awareness of my all-or-nothing complex, so I made the decision to keep close the poem [*Start Close In* by David Whyte](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xp1THyuOUo) with its reminder to just take the next step. On the 21st, I had a 'Feel Good Menu' of ten things I wanted to do that I could pick and choose from each day. While that worked, it needed tweaking because I started turning the ten choices into ten requirements. On the 26th, I effortlessly rethought the menu, tightened the options, said four of them are most important, and came up with this image. Reading the two circles separately and starting from the centre, it spells DOGS CODE. Here’s what it means. ![[DOGS CODE.webp]] ## DOGS Everything here is a daily action. There’s no minimum or maximum on the time, but every day is a must. **D** Dance — Body Groove, Chakradance, Leonard Cohen, anything else **O** Open — This needed to be O to give me a vowel, but it’s also relevant because of the connection to being a conduit. This category is making expressive art or narrative art, or it’s writing, often analog with fountain pens, in response to prompts or body sensations or reflections from listening to my Self. **G** Ground — Something selected from the [[Embodiment - Ground Curriculum]]. **S** Savour — A food, a moment, an object ## CODE The outer circle was was meant to be often/sometimes actions, but with no minimum or maximum on the time, I’m finding that I’m easily doing them every day. **C** Connection — with other people, beyond superficial acquaintances **O** Otherworld — again the need of a vowel. The [[Otherworld]] is a Celtic place of archetypal beings. I’m using it here to refer to work with [[Dreams]], [[Active Imagination]] and [[Image]]. **D** Develop and Downsize — Develop my vault as *the exterior map of my inner self*. Downsize my library, paper and digital resources. **E** Esoteric Energy — Anything I’m doing with [[Tarot]] or oracle cards, poems, bibliomancy ## HOW I USE THE VISUAL A copy of the image is pinned in the left sidebar of my vault so it’s always in front of me when I’m in Obsidian. Plus, I’ve made my own stickers by printing sixteen to a page on Avery full sheet labels, and putting one per day in an analog journal. The journal pages are an array of notations about the day in different colours of fountain pen inks (currently persimmon, moon dust, and bluegrass velvet), stickers from Peter Pauper Press (they have beautiful ones), coloured in quadrants on DOGS CODE as actions are taken and, if I’ve done all eight in the day, as I have every day so far, there’s a dog sticker somewhere on the page. ## Bars The bars at the top and the bottom are bookends. They’re important to the success of DOGS CODE, but they aren’t treated the same as the rest because the first one isn’t in my control, and the second is very subjective. The bar at the top is for **Sleep**. If my Apple watch shows that I’ve had a minimum of seven hours of sleep, I highlight or colour this bar. The bar at the bottom is for **More and Less**. I’m always trying to make better food choices. The left side of the bar gets coloured if in the day I’ve deliberately had ‘more’ — more vegetables, more water, more protein; the right side if I’ve deliberately had ‘less’ — less sugar, less simple carbs. ## A DOGS CODE of ethics is Devotion to her person, and that’s what I intend to be — devoted to being more of who I am, with behaviours aligned to my values of inner harmony, spirituality, creative expression, and simplicity, not to my thoughts or habits. > [!Orbit] [[Mary Oliver]] > You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotion. > [!Orbit] Luciano Pavarotti > People think I am disciplined. It is not discipline, it is devotion. There is a great difference.