REGRETS ONLY

Sorry I Ruined Your Meditation Meeting When I Turned Into A Werewolf

I am a work in progress

To: fellow members of the Infinite Eye Thursday Night Meditation Circle

I thought I would send a group email, rather than apologize to each of you individually. Given the circumstances, you might not want to hear from me today, or tomorrow, or for-fucking-ever. I get it.

There’s sorry. And then there’s what I am feeling right now.

I can’t tell you how much I was looking forward to my first in-person meditation meeting in two years. Pre-pandemic, these Thursday night meditation get-togethers really helped to smooth out the kinks in my brain.

So it was especially painful for me to learn that two minutes after the moderator turned on the dim purple lights and everyone settled into their chairs, I fell fast asleep.

Bad form? I was just getting started.

Sleeping was disrespectful, but the loud rhythmic snoring which followed must surely belong to a different category. My phlegmy, earsplitting rasp led to hotel security knocking on my door countless times, and must have placed a speed bump on your highway to deeper consciousness.

Inexcusable.

You’d be forgiven if you had never heard of “snore-farting,” which is quite rare, though my aggressive demonstration Thursday night will doubtless make it hard to forget. Sleep researchers say my noxious snore, fart, snore, fart oompah cycle occurs in fewer than 0.05% of all adult males. Given the resulting toxicity in the room, you might well conclude that’s 0.05% too many.

I can say sorry a thousand times and it won’t be enough.

In the wake of my snore-fart tsunami, the fact that I also talk in my sleep might seem anti-climactic. Still, how are you supposed to see sublime visions through your third eye when someone is snoring, farting, snore-farting and THEN howling mournfully at top volume?

I can’t think of a single meditative tradition that encourages that.

We could ignore the plentiful drool and flying spittle that then covered every surface, but my gross violation of decorum, not to mention Covid protocols, forbids it. At this point, any hopes for your serenity are shot to hell.

Blame me. I do.

According to the YouTube videos police showed me afterward, this was the point when my chest ripped in half, my snout elongated, my teeth grew into three-inch fangs and hairy razor-sharp claws ripped their way through my puny man flesh. I can see why it went viral.

Whatever you want to call what happened next — “blood feast,” “massacre,” “abbatoir” — it certainly couldn’t be called a meditation meeting. I violated both the spirit and the letter of this gathering and I am sure there will be some hard words at the next business meeting.

Further, headlines like WEREWOLF RAMPAGE aren’t consistent with the kind of image you’ve worked so hard to achieve at the Infinite Eye Meditation Center. How could you know “murdering your reputation” would be the last box on my to-do list?

In retrospect, I should have told someone there is a streak of lycanthropy (recessive) in my family, but thus far I have successfully kept my urges in check with Pilates and meditation. Until Thursday, my craving for human flesh had been virtually zero. 10 percent. 15-ish.

Though I am wholly at fault, the center might consider installing shades in the meditation room that would block the beams from the full moon from hitting anyone directly in the eye. Not being Cassandra, not pointing fingers, but 12 bucks at Home Depot might have saved us all a lot of trouble here.

I will of course pay to clean up all the bloodstains, viscera, hospital bills, funerals, exorcisms, etc. The group should only bear financial liability for regular wear and tear. This is not what the collection basket is for.

Finally, If I bit you or slashed you during the melee and you survived, great!

You have also joined the legion of werefolk, not great. Know that I am here to counsel each one of you as you embark on this challenging, but often thrilling next phase in your life journey. We might consider forming a meditation pack.

Will Smith spoke for me when he said, “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the wolfman I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness. I am a work in progress.”

I hope we can put this unfortunate incident past us and use it to strengthen our spiritual practice.

See you on Zoom.

Namaste,

Wulf

* * *

Howls to Andrew Rodwin.