A Garden of Aches and Odd Diagnoses
I finished another 24-hour fast this week—not unusual now, but it still resets things in a satisfying way. I’d gone to a fast food shop and bought something terribly unhealthy. My punishment? Twenty-four hours of nothing. Fair trade, lol.
Earlier in the week, I went to see a physio about my dodgy shoulder. He put me through a range of strength tests—pressing, pushing, resisting—in various positions, seated and lying flat. All the usual poking and probing.
At one point he stopped and asked, “Did you break your wrist?” I hadn’t. But I explained the family history: Carpal Tunnel syndrome runs through us like a bad gene joke. A few of them have had operations. I’ve got it too, but I mostly just get on with things.
He started to work on my wrist—manipulating, pressing, loosening—and that’s when I got the shock. It hurt. Properly hurt. I hadn’t even realised it was that bad. So now, alongside the gammy right shoulder, it turns out the wrist’s no good either.
Apparently, I have a full-blown case of Rightsideditis. Shoulder, wrist, whole side’s a write-off. My right piriformis acts up from time to time, my right calf muscles occasionally lock up like someone’s cranked a winch inside my leg. I’ve got costochondritis too—which, of course, affects the right side of my ribcage—and there’s a chronic back issue lurking in the same zone that loves to join the party whenever the costo flares up. As a final insult, my right eye is lazy. Utterly useless. Just sits there doing nothing but making me look asymmetrical in photos. At this point, the entire right half of me might as well be reclassified as ornamental.
The physio gave me a set of exercises to work on. I’d expected pure shoulder rehab, but he broke it down like a menu: 33% shoulder, 33% triceps, 33% wrist. Not sure where the other 1% goes, but whatever—I’m doing the lot. I’ve been sticking to them daily, and I’ve even started replicating the wrist massage he did, using oil followed by the massage gun, and finishing off with a healthy dollop of topical CBD. The stuff smells so good I have to stop myself from licking it. It’s like rehab crossed with aromatherapy—one of the few treatments that makes you hungry.
Combine all that with the lingering garden lurgee and I’m pretty much ready to be composted—preferably on my left side.
Weather, Wind, and Flopped Geraniums
The weather went from California to... I don’t even know. Somewhere wetter, moodier, and distinctly Irish. It’s now raining nearly every day—though we do get flashes of sun between the showers. According to the forecast, this kind of on-again-off-again weather is here for the week. Back to classic Ireland.
Today, however, took a turn for the worse. A brutal, constant wind had the trees and shrubs all leaning eastward like they were trying to flee the Atlantic. Add in the rain, and voilà: you’ve got the perfect recipe for snapped stems and bent borders.
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| Sambucus 'Black Lace' with one large stem collapsed—the rest of the shrub still upright, but the fallen stem sprawled across the ground, snapped at the base. |
When I got home this evening, I found one of the main stems on my Sambucus 'Black Lace' snapped at the base, lying across the ground. The rest of the plant is fine, but that stem had always been more exposed—facing west, straight into the teeth of the Atlantic wind. It had also taken years of cat damage, which probably weakened it over time. It used to be sheltered by a large rose nearby, but I cut that rose to the ground this year to remove it. Without that buffer, the stem was on its own. And now it’s down.
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| Geranium 'Rozanne' flopped sideways in soaked mulch, stems flattened under the weight of rain and wind. |
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| Another angle of Geranium 'Rozanne'—wide and messy, sprawling into nearby plants, visibly unbothered by your plans |
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| Third Geranium 'Rozanne', looking like it tried to escape the border entirely. |
As for the Geranium 'Rozanne', three of them are floppy. I had considered giving them the Chelsea chop, but I decided to let them run wild this year. Now I’ve got a mess. Still, they’ll likely right themselves once the wind settles. And if not? I can always go in with the chop after the fact. That’s the beauty of geraniums—they’re forgiving. Even if you let them fall on their faces, they come back swinging.
Spirals, Models, and the Quiet Intelligence of Form
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| Macro photo of Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’ bud—tightly spiraled and vividly green, with Fibonacci-like symmetry against a soft-focus background. |
I snapped this photo last summer—Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’, just before opening. It's growing in a container, where it's got a fighting chance. In our clay-heavy Irish soil, and with winters as soggy and cold as they are, I doubt it would survive in the ground. So I give it what shelter I can.
The symmetry is unreal. Each little spike arranged like it’s following some ancient design spec. No bloom yet, no colour burst—just compressed potential, radiating order and patience. It’s the kind of structure you don’t usually notice unless you stop and stare for a while.
There’s something reassuring about that kind of stillness. It's not static. It’s loaded. You can feel the energy gathering, like it’s waiting for the right conditions to let go.
Looking at this structure, I can’t help but think: this is what future AI will end up mimicking. Not just language or logic, but form. The spiral in that Echinacea isn’t random—it’s mathematics made physical. Fibonacci, golden ratios, Mandelbrot sets—nature’s been running recursive patterns since forever. No code, no electricity, just time and sunlight.
We build models to process data. Nature builds shapes that are data. One day, AI won’t just simulate thought—it’ll simulate growth. It’ll layer algorithms the way this flower layers spines: elegant, efficient, inevitable. Not because someone programmed it to be beautiful, but because certain shapes just work. They repeat because they endure.
The models we’re building now? They won’t disappear. They’ll be folded into recursive structures—compressed, nested, and infinitely stored. Nothing wasted. Just buried deeper, waiting to be triggered. Like seeds under permafrost. Like dormant genes. Like a stem waiting for spring.
And when a question gets asked—by some end user, whoever or whatever that is—the answer will bubble up through infinite nested logic. Not generated, but surfaced. Distilled from a thousand silent spirals.
Some users will be biological: still very human, still very curious.
Some will be augmented: neural-linked and porous, part flesh, part network.
Some will be synthetic: minds shaped by architecture and intention, speaking language as instinct.
And others won’t be “users” at all—more like systems, querying reality as a way of maintaining balance.
In that context, a question is just a ripple. The answer is a spiral rising to meet it.
And maybe—if we’re lucky—it’ll still carry the shape of a flower bud. Tight. Quiet. Ready to bloom when the timing’s right.
Journals, Marcus Aurelius, and What Comes Next
I listened to a podcast this week featuring Ryan Holiday—a modern writer and media strategist best known for popularising Stoic philosophy. He’s written several books like The Obstacle Is the Way and Stillness Is the Key, drawing heavily from ancient Stoic thinkers, particularly Marcus Aurelius.
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| Stylised photo of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations with the quote “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” A nod to reflection and inner work. |
I’ve studied history extensively—especially Roman history—so if you'd asked me about Marcus or the collapse of the Roman Empire, I’d have gone on for hours. I’ve got my own theories, of course. Late antiquity is one of those endlessly fascinating periods: complex, transitional, and often misunderstood.
As Ryan spoke about Marcus Aurelius, he mentioned how the emperor kept a personal journal—writing not for anyone else, but for himself. Those writings would eventually become what we now know as Meditations. (Technically, it wasn’t a “book” in his time, but a private series of notes and reflections, never intended for publication.)
That idea really stuck with me.
So, I’ve decided that this blog—originally a space for gardening and physical updates—can also hold whatever else is on my mind. Not everything has to be about soil or sore joints. As Ryan explained, it’s a healthy practice to write things down, whether they’re personal or not. It helps you clarify, observe, step back from the day a little. So, from time to time, I might start recording thoughts that have nothing to do with plants or fasting. Just reflections, observations—whatever wants to surface.
I didn’t mean for this post to stretch from torn wrists to torn stems to Roman emperors—but that’s how the week unfolded. If nothing else, it’s proof that the body, the garden, and the mind are always in some kind of rehab. And maybe that’s the real throughline here: stay in the work, even when half of you is floppy and the wind’s against you.
