nodes relating to nodes to relate to nodes

A design decision which I made early on was to have the simple concept of nodes which can relate to nodes to describe their very relation by more node relations. haha sound confusing? The main point of actually using a node itself to describe a relationship is for that reason exactly: to be able to store node content to describe that particular relationship. i.e. if you were to model a recipe perhaps you would want to give a more meaningful description of each ingredient in the recipe beyond just what the ingredient is and it's quantity. thus you end up with

apple pie (recipe)
  -> (recipe ingredient) -> apple (fruit)
                         -> 1/2 cup (measurement)

  -> (recipe ingredient) -> margarine (food)
                         -> 1 pound (weight)

I think that makes sense the trick is that each word in parentheses is indicating what type of node it is. The generalization of this relation is:

(recipe) -> (recipe ingredient) -> ((food) (measurement))

So there is a relation between recipe and recipe ingredient types. Then there are two more relations between recipe ingredient and food and measurement. You will notice that this means the relation is valid for anything descending from the specified type i.e. weight extends measurement and fruit extends food thus both beig valid relations.

Another example would be a "record"

(record) -> (pressing) -> ((format) (color) (pressing number) (number pressed))
         -> (relased by) -> (band)

the point is that the structure of the node types is by nature hierarchical merely to allow the inheritence/cascading of relations. But the way the instances of nodes relate is not hierarchical at all in that any node can relate to any other node so long as the relation is established and in the main I think that is going to remain entirely open except for in the case of "system structures" i.e. want lists and "collection space collections".