I just recently split out the ORM, Waterline into a new project. The first step was to get API compatibility with the current ORM and a bit of sugar like lifecycle callbacks and custom instance methods.

Associations are next on the list of to-dos. It's still a very new ORM but I'm working on making it better. Check it out I'd love feedback or better yet pull requests.

https://github.com/balderdashy/waterline

I don't think you're forced to use their model layer.