went into ancient site of Olympia all morning.

then 250 km to Delphi, where I am sitting right now.

am up high on edge of a cliff, overlooking Corinthian gulf.

is hot, but very nice.

will go to archaeological site first thing in morning.

have had numerous remarkable visits to sites during past week.

one highlight was getting a tour of Ephesus from lead archaeologist from the terrace house excavations on site.

he has been working there for 32 years.

many of most spectacular finds in museum are his work.

he was kind enough to put me in touch with one of his favorite fellow archaeologists who is now a prof at UCSB.

i look forward to meeting with her upon return.

also, after giving several days of intense thought as re: how in the world i managed to step off of a 30 foot high seawall I was finally able to piece together just what exactly happened.

that's right, you guessed it, my third very wicked experience with vertigo.

it is a medical diagnosis as opposed to generic use of word.

after my very near fatal experience at Yosemite several years ago, I was diagnosed with this condition.

it seems that time and spacial relations are both controlled by inner ear.

the physician who finally made the diagnosis following six hours of the most intensive and comprehensive testing imaginable suffers from this condition himself.

he advised me to just sit down and hug the ground immediately when it hppens, before one otherwise inevitably crashes and burns, with a vengeance.

following the second episode, two years after the first, I did just that, with the most heartfelt "oh no, here it goes again" you have ever heard.

following that I laid on ground spinning violently in multiple planes for seven hours while projectile vomiting the entire time.

it was not fun.

somehow reminds me of numerous persons and situations with which I am forced to deal on a nearly daily basis.

so, I have had just enough experience to know what triggers it, with me.

as i kept rehearsing all of the eyewitness accounts of what was related to me immedately following the fall I realized that I had very good recall of all fine detail right up to the point within seconds of stepping off into the air.

but then my memory gets really strange.

because the very last thing which I do recall is "nothing", as in nothingness.

I puzzled over this for several days as I finally realized that I had very suddenly stepped into "The White Room", made famous by Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker, aka Cream.

I was greatly puzzled by the fact that everything had just suddeny become intensely bright and very white.

then, why did I not even know that I was falling, or that I had hit the ground way hard enough to knock me unconscious?

of course, being highly medically trained, I could not help but wonder if I was suffering from retrograde amnesia.

that is why I waited several days to see if any memory was coming back.

well it was and it did.

inside The White Room.

the more I considered the matter, the more I saw that white sustained "flash".

then why no memory of falling or hitting?

VERTIGO!

no time.

no space.

no direction.

instant and complete breakdown of the balancing system.

I had this experience in the one hour code three (red lights and siren, as fast as they could drive) ride down out of the mountains to the trauma center in Fresno.

I thought it took a minute or two and thought that we were traveling in the opposite direction than we were, while everything around me turned into colorful streaks of light.

It was so frightening to look at that I was forced to close my eyes during most of the entire time.

I counted 5 planes in which I was spinning continuously the entire time.

as I thought about that experience and my subsequent medical studies regarding this matter I suddenly had an "epiphany".

I suddenly lost ALL vision and ALL spatial relations, simultaneously and with no warning.

that is why I suddenly turned from direction moving away from edge of seawall and equally suddenly, with apparent casualness, stepped off into the air.

because I had no sight or sense of direction, whatsoever.

how do you know you are falling if you have no idea, whatsoever which way is up, or down, or forwards, or backwards, or left, or right?

no directional points of reference= no directionality.

such a concept as falling simply has no place, here.

i.e. falling as compared to what?

EInstein could be heard laughing loudly from his final resting place.

after all, direction, momentum, and velocity and time and space are ALL relative.

and, guess what, you cannot get out, once you are inside.

welcome to The White Room.

falling = relative.

direction = relative.

time and distance = relatve.

and finally, abrupt change of velocity as I slam into the ground = relative.

no wonder all I could say upon being roused was "What happened?".

because I really was not there.

as people are hurriedly wiping blood off of my face I simply have no idea of what is going on.

and no memory is formed, because the data required to form it NEVER EXISTED!

sounds like time for new cliff protocals, in my not-so-humble opinion.

so, there you have it.

I was high up on the cliffs of the Mycaenaean Acropolis in Mycaenae yesterday.

you can only imagine.

must get to bed.

w/love to all

vw

Tuesday

8-21-12
11:20 p.m.

Delphi, Greece

p.s.  it is really good to be alive!

I thank and praise the Lord God Omnipotent (YHWH) for giving his blessed angels charge over me as they most definitely caught this helpless babe and cushioned his blow.

Why? I asked rather quizzically.

"The books", he answered.

I knew exactly what this means and meant.

I will tell later about The Merchants of Venezia who only just recently agreed to make the hand-made leather bindings using only the highest quality leathers in the ancient Venezian tradition.

I was long ago ready to die.

But, this is something really exciting.

and my boss just added his imprimatur by bringing my very dead and lifeless body back to life, yet once again, in order to make it abundantly clear to me that the time has finally come to proceed full speed ahead.

I can only hope that I am up to completing this very important work.

more to come --- ?