I may have just done the most psychotic thing ever, because as I usually write I am never confused about reality and ideas, but here's where, if i'm wrong about the magic idea, i've been genuinely confused about it!

Have I talked yet about the malayan tapir? Black and white like a 700 pound yin-yang symbol, hasn't evolved for the past 70 million years, the ancient relative of the horse and rhino.

I say this thing is a shaman, and more powerful than most human shamans i've met. Because i'm leaving new york, I went to spend some time with the bronx zoo tapir, and it's always an amazing and life changing experience. He flashed his red eye at me, with a look that goes straight to your soul, a glance that knows you through to the core of your spirit, and loves you immensely. I'm not sexually attracted to the thing, but it's the closest thing to being in love for that moment.

And he teaches! He hasn't evolved for 70 million years, because he holds it in - that's what he teaches.

The first encounter - love at first split second - was at the zoo in omaha nebraska, at the center of the us. Largest indoor jungle in the world. I saw two tapirs, and I sensed something special instantly, the way they moved, the look in their eyes.....

I went back to omaha, meaning to take a day for the zoo, then got lazy. All of a sudden a strong message came to me, a plea to keep my promise and go to the zoo. I got up and went, and breathed magic measured breath on them to wake them up and they responded to the magic, got up and did a dance including one standing on hind legs in the water looking right up at me, and both of them tossing their head up and trunk up periodically, a message from the heart of the universe, a prayer from the heart of god, a prayer for prayer, a prayer that as it goes out in every size and shape and color out into the universe it is us, and our actions and thoughts, and the tapir at the sacred center is casting a plea for a more sacred dispensation, an imperative to fight against destruction and for renewal.

I met a japanese girl at a party, and told her I had been to the zoo earlier that day. She asked "by yourself?" thinking, "how odd!". But I said yeah, it's a mile from home and I have a yearly pass, so it's my backyard. She then asked "so what's your favorite animal?" and I knew the word tapir means almost nothing to anyone, so I pulled a picture out of my wallet. She said "oh! That's what we call in china the "dream eater" - the legend is that if a child has a bad dream they just call the dream eater (the malayan tapir) and he will eat up all the bad dreams.

So others think there's something special about this animal.

So then I went to the bronx tapir to see if he could eat dreams. Sure enough! Eats them and shows you in your mind whole worlds of dreams that you never had yet that connect to yours. Then he explains, (through his eyes, through his behavior, through the wierdly slow movements) that yes, he eats dreams, which means he eats demons, just like I do! But he points out that you don't just eat everything, you have to digest it! He digest it with extraordinarily graceful ritualistic life-oriented moves carried out with exquisite control and calm - climb down into the water, spin in a slow circle creating a little whirlpool, climb back out, nibble on a leaf that's high up, nibble at one down low, walk around casting powerful knowing glances at admirers....

I read that "trials of the visionary mind" about a cosmic center, a spiritual center, where the core of the mind resides. Yours is in your religion, in jesus. And I realized mine is in the tapir in the jungle. And isn't that crazy?!?

Someone said I shouldn't put so much power in an animal. And I entertain the idea that I just had a psyche ready to learn things and just projected them on some poor unsuspecting zoo animal, that all this learning and love just takes place in my mind, and i'm insanely projecting this.

I maintain both theories as always but the thing is for hours or days I truly believe in the tapir. Maybe I have reached a true psychosis!!!!!

Onderdonk