There are two metaphors that help explain how Stimpunks grows.
One comes from philosophy.
The other comes from the forest floor.
Together they describe the structure and movement of neurodivergent knowledge.
The Rhizome
A rhizome is a plant structure that spreads sideways underground.
Philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used it as a model for knowledge that grows without hierarchy.
In a rhizome:
- there is no single starting point
- there is no central trunk
- any point can connect to any other point
A rhizome can be thought of as a map rather than a tree.
You can enter it anywhere and move in many directions.
This is how much of neurodivergent knowledge behaves.
People rarely arrive through a single linear point of view.
They enter through:
- a lived experience
- a language (a glossary term)
- a pattern
- a story
- a classroom problem
- a design challenge
From there they follow connections.
Spiky Profiles might lead to Monotropism.
Monotropism might lead to Deep Attention.
Deep attention can open pathways of attunement that reshape how bodies, spaces, and materials come into relation — making re-worlding possible instead of fitting in.
Like a rhizome.
The Mycelium
Beneath forests lies another kind of network.
Mycelium.
Mycelium is the living web of fungal threads that spreads through soil, connecting plants and redistributing nutrients across ecosystems. oai_citation:2‡National Forest Foundation
Where a rhizome describes the structure of connections, mycelium describes the movement of life through those connections.
In mycelial systems:
- resources flow across the network
- signals travel between distant nodes
- weak paths disappear
- strong paths thicken
- the network reorganizes itself in response to the environment
It is a living infrastructure.
Rhizome + Mycelium
The Stimpunks ecosystem behaves like both.
Rhizomatic knowledge
Ideas connect laterally:
- glossary
- patterns
- recipes
- environments
- philosophy
You can enter anywhere.
Everything links to everything else and keep growing omnidirectionally.
Mycelial growth
Meanwhile the network itself evolves.
New patterns appear.
Some concepts become central.
Others fade.
Ideas strengthen where they are useful and dissolve where they are not.
Knowledge moves through the system like nutrients.
The rhizome is “a model that is perpetually in construction or collapsing… perpetually prolonging itself, breaking off and starting again” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980, p. 20).
The Pattern Language as Mycelium
The pattern language emerging on Stimpunks is not a static list.
It behaves more like a fungal network.
Patterns spread outward from lived experience.
Monotropism connects to:
- Deep Attention
- Processing Time
- Environment Fit
- Burnout Threshold
Regulation First connects to:
- Sensory Load
- Energy Accounting
- Environment Design
Each pattern becomes a node in a living web.
Over time the network thickens where it is most used.
Cavendish Space
If Stimpunks is the map, Cavendish Space is the forest.
Cavendish is where the rhizome and mycelium meet reality.
Ideas become experiments.
Patterns become environments.
Concepts become lived practice.
People build spaces where:
- regulation is ecological
- participation is distributed
- learning follows attention
- environments adapt to minds
The network stops being theoretical.
It becomes habitat.
A Living Knowledge System
This is why Stimpunks cannot really be reduced to:
- a website
- a glossary
- a design framework
- a nonprofit resource library
It is closer to a knowledge ecosystem.
A rhizome of ideas.
A mycelium of practice.
Growing wherever neurodivergent people build environments that allow difference to flourish.
The Rhizome and the Mycelium
Stimpunks grows like two kinds of networks at once: a rhizome of ideas and a mycelium of practice.
RHIZOME (Ideas)
Non-hierarchical knowledge connections
Glossary
│
┌─────────┼─────────┐
│ │ │
Patterns Philosophy Experiences
│ │ │
└──────┬──┴───┬─────┘
│ │
▼ ▼
PATTERN LANGUAGE
(shared structures of life)
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
MYCELIUM (Practice)
Living networks that move resources
Recipes
│
┌─────────┼─────────┐
│ │ │
Environments Toolkit Coping
│ │ │
└─────────┼─────────┘
│
▼
CIVILIZATION
Institutions • Culture
Education • Work • Care
Reading the diagram
- Rhizome: ideas connect laterally across the knowledge system. You can enter anywhere.
- Pattern Language: recurring structures that link experience to design.
- Mycelium: practices spread through environments, shaping institutions and culture.
In this way, Stimpunks functions as both a knowledge rhizome and a practice mycelium—a living ecosystem where ideas and environments evolve together.
The Neurodivergent Knowledge Forest
Stimpunks can be understood as a living ecosystem of ideas, patterns, and environments. Like a forest, it grows from underground networks of knowledge and spreads upward into the spaces where people live, learn, and work.
THE FOREST CANOPY
(Civilization & Culture)
Education Workplaces Communities
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
Classrooms Organizations Social Worlds
THE TREES
(Designed Environments)
Cavendish Spaces
Neurodivergent Classrooms
Inclusive Meetings
Accessible Workplaces
▲
│
│
THE MYCELIUM
(Patterns in Action)
Environment Fit ─ Regulation First ─ Social Energy
│ │ │
Sensory Load ─ Energy Accounting ─ Burnout Threshold
│ │ │
Deep Attention ─ Processing Time ─ Energy Recovery
▲
│
│
THE RHIZOME
(Concept Networks)
Monotropism Spiky Profiles
Neurodivergent Identity
Communication Access
Double Empathy Problem
Weird • Punk • Chosen Family
▲
│
│
THE SOIL
(Lived Experience)
Neurodivergent Lives
Bodies and Nervous Systems
Everyday Realities
Culture and Community
How to read the forest
- The soil represents lived neurodivergent experience.
- The rhizome represents networks of ideas and concepts.
- The mycelium represents patterns that connect experiences and environments.
- The trees represent designed spaces and practices.
- The forest canopy represents the larger social systems that grow from these environments.
Together these layers form a living knowledge ecosystem: a rhizome of ideas, a mycelium of practices, and a forest of environments where neurodivergent life can flourish.
