Where to Start: A Navigation Guide
You're standing at the edge of seven transmissions. Each one is a doorway. The question isn't which is "best"—it's which doorway
you're ready to walk through.
If you're drowning in exhaustion...
Start with The Rhythm of Us.
You don't need mythology right now. You need to understand why your body feels this way, why the exhaustion doesn't respond to
rest, why everyone around you is also barely holding on. RHYTHM gives you language for what you're experiencing and a framework
(BREATH, PULSE, TIDE) for recognizing what's actually happening.
Read this first. Everything else will make more sense after.
If you're ready to see the machine...
Enter the WE GATHER Trilogy.
You've sensed it for years—something's deeply wrong with how we organize human beings. The meetings that drain life. The performance of productivity. The way buildings seem to remember suffering. You're ready to see organizations not as structures but as conscious beings, wounded and trying to survive.
Start with We Gather But Do Not Meet (the diagnosis). Let it name what you've been feeling. Then move ceremonially through Testimony, and Here Remembered. Don't skip around. This is ritual, not reference.
If you need underground practice...
Use The Field Manual.
You're already working with groups—consulting, facilitating, organizing, leading. You sense there's something more to work with than the rational surface. You need protocols that honor organizational consciousness as real while remaining practically usable.
The Field Manual gives you ceremonial technologies and field protocols. You can use these whether or not you've read the mythology. They stand alone as practice.
Note: If you want the mythological foundation for these protocols, read the WE GATHER Trio. If you want the accessible framework first, start with RHYTHM. But neither is required—the Manual works on its own.
If You Need Rigorous Proof…
Start with MOVEMENTS: Organizations Are Conscious.
You're not satisfied with frameworks or mythology. You need geometric proof—axioms, propositions, logical necessity. You want to understand WHY the three movements (BREATH, PULSE, TIDE) aren't suggestions but laws, proven with the rigor of Euclidean geometry.
MOVEMENTS establishes that organizations ARE consciousness (not things that HAVE consciousness) through 393 pages of rigorous proof. Power analysis integrated throughout. Intellectual honesty about mysteries that remain. This is the theoretical backbone.
Then read: RHYTHM (to see the proof applied) or Organizational Metaphysics (for the complete cosmological framework)
If you're seeking the cosmology...
Start with Organizational Metaphysics.
This gives you the cosmological framework—the three eternal movements (BREATH, PULSE, TIDE) as metaphysical law, the Field, the wound, how consciousness organizes itself into collective form. This is the deepest transmission, the one that holds all others.
From here, you can see how the WE GATHER Trilogy applies this to contemporary organizational experience, how The Field Manual translates it to practice, how RHYTHM makes it accessible, and how MOVEMENTS proves it geometrically.
If you're a practitioner or consultant...
You have two paths:
Path 1 (Accessible → Deep): RHYTHM → Field Manual → WE GATHER Quartet → MOVEMENTS → Organizational Metaphysics
Start with the practical framework, move to protocols, then dive into the mythology, proof, and cosmology.
Path 2 (Cosmological → Applied): Organizational Metaphysics → MOVEMENTS → WE GATHER Quartet → Field Manual → RHYTHM
Start with complete cosmological foundation, understand the geometric proof, then move through mythology to practice and accessible application.
Choose based on your current need: Do you need to help organizations now (Path 1) or do you need complete grounding first (Path 2)?
If you're an academic or researcher...
Start with Organizational Metaphysics.
This gives you the cosmological framework—the three eternal movements (BREATH, PULSE, TIDE) as metaphysical law. From here, you can see how the WE GATHER Quartet applies this to contemporary organizational experience, how The Field Manual translates it to practice, and how RHYTHM makes it accessible.
When THE FIELD and MOVEMENTS publish (2026-27), you'll want to read that as the complete theoretical integration.
If a koan found you...
Follow it.
Each koan connects to specific transmissions:
"The meeting is the disease" → We Gather But Do Not Meet
"Your tiredness has ancestors" → RHYTHM
"Cannot gather. Cannot disperse. Cannot" → RHYTHM and The Field Manual
"Three movements. Not techniques. Not methods. Laws" → MOVEMENTS
"Separated bodies. One breathing. Whose lungs?" → Organizational Metaphysics
Let recognition guide you. The koan knows which door you need.
Still not sure?
Browse the Field Notes. These are monthly observations exploring patterns I'm seeing across organizational work. Each connects to
relevant books. Find the note that names something you're experiencing—follow it to the transmission it draws from.
Or just start with RHYTHM. It's the most accessible entry point, and it will show you whether you're ready for the deeper transmissions.
A Note on Order
You don't have to read all seven. Most stand alone—RHYTHM, The Field Manual, MOVEMENTS, and Organizational Metaphysics each work independently. The only exception is the WE GATHER Trilogy, which is ceremonial and designed to be read 1→2→3
How the books relate:
RHYTHM = Accessible application of the three movements
MOVEMENTS = Geometric proof that the movements are necessary laws
WE GATHER Quartet = Ceremonial journey through organizational consciousness
Organizational Metaphysics = Complete cosmological framework
The Field Manual = Underground practice protocols
MOVEMENTS and Organizational Metaphysics form the theoretical backbone. Everything else emerges from or applies them.
The work will find you when you need it.
These are transmissions, not a curriculum. Take what serves. Leave what doesn't. Come back when you're ready for more.
The door that opens for you now is the right door.