The Medicine Wheel, as the thing that organizes an episode
Not a diagram on a slide — a working relational memory graph. Every session of work closes into it as an episode, in a direction, bound to its relatives by edges that carry obligations. This page shows the grammar, what the wheel holds right now, and one episode assembled end to end.
98
relatives
nodes in the graph
49
episodes
closed into the North
88
relations
edges written
70
carry obligations
of those edges
10
ceremony honored
tended, not just written
10 of 88 relations have been tended in ceremony. The distance between those two numbers is the honest state of the work — a written obligation is not yet a kept one.
The episode begins as a question and a desired outcome. Structural tension is named before anything is built: where we are, and what we intend to bring into being.
Holds today: Structural tension charts, the humans an inquiry is addressed to, the outreach packets that state an outcome to an outsider.
The path is set and consent is established. Obligations are written onto each relation before the work begins, so accountability is structural rather than remembered.
Holds today: Ceremonies, consent grants, plan perspectives — the record of what was agreed and by whom.
The doing. Code, film, writing, deployment — the tension is held inside the practice rather than resolved by shortcut.
Holds today: Hosts, services, tenants, ports — the infrastructure a session actually ran on, registered as relations rather than config.
The episode is closed into memory: what was learned, what it is now related to, what the next reader will stand on. This is where an episode becomes a node.
Holds today: The chronicle episodes themselves — every closed episode is a knowledge node in the North.
A person in relation — collaborator, elder, correspondent. Never a 'contact'.
A teaching, an episode, an artefact, a packet. What was learned and where it is written.
A place, a territory, a host machine. Where the work is grounded.
The intention or ceremony animating the work.
What came before and made this possible — lineage, prior art, prior episodes.
A desired outcome not yet manifest — the far end of a structural tension chart.
Every relation written into the wheel carries `obligations` — the things that become true of us because the relation exists — and a `ceremony_honored` flag that stays false until the relation has actually been tended. A graph of links tells you what connects. A graph of obligations tells you what you owe.
Worked example, written 2026-08-15:
Reply to Renaud — the film stated to an outsider (FR/EN)
— states-the-outcome-of (0.9) →
Episode 300 — From Shadow to Song
- ◈The paragraph names only what Episode 300 actually holds — no film promised beyond its charts
- ◈If the film's stated outcome changes in 300, the reply is revised before it is sent again
- ◈The five open research passes (DR-1…DR-5) are answered before the claim is made academically
Most-used relationship verbs on the wheel today:
A vessel folder
The episode opens as a dated, named directory — `2026-07-27-episode-300-from-shadow-to-song/` — holding `episode.yaml` and everything the work produced. Created is not committed; committed is not pushed.
A stated outcome
One sentence naming what will exist that does not exist yet, written in the present tense of the desired state — not a task list. For 300: a film demonstration whose narrative carries its own music.
Structural tension charts
The outcome, the current reality, and the action steps that hold them in tension. Charts live in the coaia-narrative store and are related to the episode by a `documented_in` edge.
Registration on the wheel
The episode becomes a knowledge node in the North, carrying its `relative_path`, its `source_issue`, and its status. Until it is registered, it exists on disk but not in memory.
Edges, with obligations
The episode is related to what it continues from, what it speaks with, who is a witness to it. Each edge names what we now owe. This is the step most systems skip.
A receipt
The closing is verified rather than declared — the episode is read back from the wheel, and only then is it done. An empty answer is not an empty world; the check proves it looked in the right place.
Demonstration — Episode 300 in the wheel
The same structure, occupied. On 2026-08-15 a reply prepared for Nicolas Renaud was related to the episode that holds the film he asked about, and a human was related as an invited witness. Below is what that looks like from inside the graph — read live from the wheel when it is reachable.
Stated outcome
A film demonstration whose narrative carries its own music — the story and the song made by one process rather than scored afterward.
Master structural tension chart
The film whose narrative carries its own music
“A viewer meets an animated piece in which what was shadow has become form they can hear.”
Why this episode, and not a neighbour
Nicolas asked two outcome questions — what final result, and what audiovisual production emerges. Episode 300 is where the chronicle states the film as an outcome rather than as a method, and it carries a master structural tension chart. Relating the reply to 300 means the letter cites a film on record, not an intention.
307 — contextual transposition names what the house was doing
Holds: The formal operation of agent-supported production — moving by common tones rather than a fixed interval.
Not the anchor: Names the method, not the result Renaud asked about.
312 — the house answers from outside itself
Holds: The film made reachable from any episode a reader is standing in.
Not the anchor: Concerns discoverability — downstream of the film existing.
315 — the last mile
Holds: What is made and not shared was not made.
Not the anchor: A sharing obligation; already related to 300 on the wheel.
140 — Laskmi trading app
Holds: Financial-resource rehearsal for the film.
Not the anchor: Funds the film; is not the film.
Bound to this episode
Reply to Renaud — the film stated to an outsider (FR/EN)
node:knowledge:1786752035063:d5wy4
- ◈The paragraph names only what Episode 300 actually holds — no film promised beyond its charts
- ◈If the film's stated outcome changes in 300, the reply is revised before it is sent again
- ◈The five open research passes (DR-1…DR-5) are answered before the claim is made academically
Nicolas Renaud
node:human:1786752030120:e3dyn7
- ◈Renaud is told what the film is before he is asked to carry it to Concordia
- ◈His forwarding is a gift of relation, not a channel to be used
- ◈What Concordia returns is brought back into the chronicle, not kept outside it
Every edge is a responsibility — these obligations bind the reply before it is sent.
Open in the chronicle
chronicle:2026-07-27-episode-300-from-shadow-to-song
The wheel answers at http://127.0.0.1:8040 — an ssh tunnel on ilex. Outside it, this panel stands on the committed snapshot.
◈The wheel does not store records of work; it stores relations between relatives, and an episode is one of them.
◈Direction is not decoration — it says which mode of knowing an entry belongs to, and an entry that skips East arrives without a stated outcome.
◈Obligations written at the moment of relating are what make accountability structural rather than remembered.