Forgive me for nerding out, but I could not resist playing with the first blog post of Empathic. This piece is written in Fibonacci’s sequence… 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. Each section spiralling wider than the last.
1
Spirals are, like stories, everywhere: in plugholes, tornadoes whisking Dorothy away, plant stems, whirlpools, galaxies, and spacecraft-crushing black holes.
1
I find them galactically terrifying at the large scale, brilliantly complex, at the small scale as proteins fold and dna, plants and crystals grow.
2
In 1994, when I studied natural sciences, I learned how stems and leaves grew in spirals.
Later, in 1997, Ian Stewart’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
showed me Fibonacci in breeding rabbits, sunflowers and the golden angle of 137.5°.
3
The Fibonacci sequence builds spirals step by step.
Divide one number by the one before it and you approach φ (Phi) the golden ratio (≈1.618).
Like π (which I once named my cat after) φ is irrational, turning forever.
5
DNA is the spiral written inside us.
One twist of the genetic ladder measures 34 angstroms long and 21 wide, both Fibonacci numbers.
Its proportions echo the golden ratio, though not perfectly.
The spiral code in our cells mirrors galaxies.
Life itself is patterned within DNA’s double helix.
8
In 2004, while at music college, I chased spirals into sound.
I studied Tool’s Lateralus, a song built on Fibonacci rhythms.
The lyrics climbing in syllables 1-1-2-3-5-8-5-3, rising and falling.
Time signatures shifting through 9/8, 8/8, and 7/8, looping in rhythmic spirals you can hear.
Story telling has rhythms too.
Spiralling narratives turning, iterating, expanding, deepening, driving the story forward.
Each return recognisable but transformed, as characters descend and return changed.
We feel the rhythm, even if we don’t know the math.
13
Spirals have haunted me.
They’ve followed me from science in 1994, to lectures in 1997, to music college in 2004, and into writing in 2019.
They are the equations written in seashells, storms, petals, DNA, and galaxies.
They remind me that life is not linear, but recursive, returning to the same place at a deeper level.
Growth is not a straight climb; it circles, expands, and sometimes doubles back.
Endings often mirror beginnings, but not as they were before.
Characters fail, falter, and begin again, as do writers.
Failure is never the end but the beginning of the next turn of the spiral.
Each setback adds depth to the pattern, not ruin.
Maybe I am going round in circles (career-based pun intended).
The years don’t quite line up like a neat Fibonacci sequence (1994, 1997, 2004, 2019, 2025) but they still spiral outward, each loop pulling me further onwards.
But maybe that’s the point: the circle widens.
The spiral pulls outward, endlessly.
And so my next spiral begins.
Featured sunflower spiral image created with the help of AI (OpenAI’s image tools). All other images are my own photographs.
References
- The Golden Ratio: https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/design/discover/golden-ratio.html
- DNA structure: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381726994_Mathematical_Elegance_of_Chirality_The_DNA_Double_Helix_and_the_Golden_Ratio
- Fibonacci sequence:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/fibonacci-sequence.html - Gingerich, J. ‘The Spiraling Narrative’. https://litreactor.com/columns/the-spiraling-theme
- Ian Stewart Royal Institution: https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/video/magical-maze-sunflowers-and-snowflakes-1997
- Tool Lateralus analysis: https://medium.com/@adityachoudhary.professional/fibonaccis-secret-symphony-the-math-that-makes-music-and-nature-sing-c23183742a45