Interview with Tantra Bensko

According to the basic laws of journalism, an interview should have two people present. However, in today’s super-tech super-cool age of blogs, messengers, protein powders, and beta-blockers there are more ways to conduct an information search and Q & A. Ralph of Lit Chaos used Yahoo Messenger to hook up with author, yoga guru, model, spiritualist and then some, Tantra Bensko (in Lit Chaos issue #20 and #22). Some of the questions get no answer or get answered three or four lines later because of the nature of a messenger interview and this only makes this all the more fun. Enjoy.

Q: are you this taunt ra character?
A: yes, ra should beware
Q: feeling quite mocked or mockable or mockinged already
A: lovingly mocked, my dearest
A: mockingbirds are needed by this world
A: tweeet wotwweeet
Q: i prefer hummingbirds pootweet
Q: so, do I know anything about you yet?
A: i used to be the high priestess of the solar order of the hummingword tree. toot sweet
A: no i don't think you know much about me as yeti
Q: lol, as yeti?
A: or perhaps i am only a lowly sasquatch. my parents never were very straight with me about that. keeping my moral high, you know.
Q: what about chupacabra?
Q: or bigfoot?
A: how dare you speak that word to me!
A: yes, big foot. we are speaking my language now.
A: i prefer to think of myself as a medium foot. but perhaps that is denial.
Q: what size?
A: they are about 2 feet long.
Q: yes medium. a Chupacabra will crush and curse you
A: that word again!!!!!!!!!!!! i must forbid that!
A: our mortal enemies
A: but they make great juice when squeezed
Q: http://www.joebrower.com/PHILE_PILE/PIX/EVIL_PEOPLE/Reno_Janet/Chupacabra.gif
Q: it's a nice photo of your enemy
Q: how about Meh-Teh? do you like that?
A: ah, you have trespassed beyond words now. do you see the reptilian features of this creature? do you realize how they once took the genes of the bigfoot and combined them with their own?
Q: aha, now I get it
A: yes. and then, that combination created you humans.
Q: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Yetiscalp.JPG
Q: so is this the original?
A: one of my short stories in southern hum magazine is about a sasquatch sitter for the elderly
Q: are you obsessed with this theme?
A: i think that scalp is uncle ernie
A: no of course not
Q: or is it just a desire to speak about your own?
A: well, often we are more interested in our own race than in others, naturally
Q: naturally
A: i also started publishing stories with a magazine called 10000 monkeys and went with that theme there as well
Q: so tell me more about tantra beyond yetis and monkeys
A: i also live in a place in alabama at times at which there has been sasquatch citings
A: yes indeed. i will go into my alternate shape shifting self as a human now.
Q: i like your play of sitting and citing -- witty
Q: new shape, ah, what does this one look like?
A: it's situational
A: well, i have humongous breasts, long noticeable red hair, often wear somewhat fun clothes, and i am often seen walking or sometimes wearing some ridiculous costume
A: people think i look half my age, but i am actually my own age
Q: do you ever walk around naked to show off those enormous breasts?
A: yes
A: often
Q: that may be why they think you look half your age
Q: it's kinda hard to concentrate on anything when breasts are present
A: or maybe its the spell i put on them as a shape-shifter. comes in handy you know
Q: especially humongous ones
A: my breasts are very present
A: and humongous
Q: well if your feet are two meters, I can only imagine!
A: but i do like to do a lot of comedy movies to make fun of that
A: ha ha
A: ta ta
Q: ra ra
Q: likes
Q: big
Q: ta ta
A: foot?
A: tee hee
Q: ho ho?
A: no, not entirely
Q: meaning...?
A: not a ho
Q: oh
Q: so...
A: should we be going so low?
Q: whoa!
Q: i thought we were medium.
Q: I am often a poor judge
A: yes, exactly. now we have recovered ourselves.
Q: would you like the "real interview question" that I have scribbled on the back of my neck?
A: yes, and i would like a picture of you reading it.
Q: lol, yes it is troublesome
Q: luckily I moonlight as a yoga guru
A: what mirrors were created for
A: me too, actually.
Q: no, it's all backwards and for some reason upside down
Q: looks like russian mixed with korean
A: many people have chosen me as their guru. can you imagine?
A: what's this korean thing anyway?
Q: don't make me take it low again, are you taunting, taunt ra?
A: yes i should hope so
Q: ah, right, bad word now -- I forgot to avoid all mentions of "korean"
Q: don't shoot me
A: i hope this whole thing is the interview. would make for interesting reading for the masses
Q: we'll let the eight ball decide that
A: wow, that's hard to avoid saying that word now. i see how that happens now
Q: i forgot to search you for weapons, everyone is a bit jittery.
A: where would you like to search?
Q: in your hair follicles
A: i once was escorted out of a bank because they thought i had weapons i think
Q: that's a popular hiding place recently.
A: because i was wearing a mask and i had my change in a sock that i was wearing on my hand. i was also using it as a sock puppet to talk to stranger.
Q: very nice, what did they say to you while this was happening?
A: microweapons are so chic
A: very little
A: micro can fit in follicles, correct?
Q: with room to spare
Q: I am not sure, you're the smuggler
A: that was in atlanta by the way. i used to live there a couple years.
Q: and now San Fran? which city has bigger mosquitoes? Our readers are dying to know.
A: san fran has no mosquitoes at all!
Q: and atlanta?
A: many places in between. atlanta. yes, it does. i used to sleep outside in the yard when i could, so i know.
A: i have always slept outside when possible. i prefer it.
Q: were you born outside?
A: i was born on a gurney
A: doesn't that sound like a song?
A: but it's true
Q: A ballad, yes. I heard you were born in Nepal, is that true?
A: i lived outside a good deal of my adult life though. i was born in indianapolis
A: i lived in indiana until i started college
Q: and then
A: i went back only once, to a class reunion for my high school, 10 year. i took off my clothes and went skinny dipping in the reservoir at the reunion.
Q: ah, the breasts again!
A: then, alabama. i lived in a tiny cabin in the woods first taking a few classes, then started to the university
Q: were you alone in the reservoir?
Q: were you alone in the university?
A: actually, no one other person did it as well
Q: what did you study?
A: i was alone at first until i took my first class. i married my teacher
A: writing
Q: quick look left and describe what you see!
A: i got my BA and ma in english and my MFA in poetry
A: two clams
A: kissing, with their organs showing. one of my prints
Q: focus in and describe
A: i scanned the clams i found disemboweled
A: i was living in olympia by the ocean and there had been a clam dig
Q: is that a hobby?
A: i like to take dead animals and put them on my scanner, yes.
Q: disemboweled shellfish?
Q: ah, all animals. Any humans?
A: yes, or frogs, or lizards, crabs, whatever
A: yes. i sat on the scanner naked. that picture is on the other wall.
A: it was also in the seattle erotic art festival where it was sold
Q: got it on jpeg? Lit K-os could use a good photo!
A: yes i do. but it has been published
A: may be again, we'll see how it looks
Q: do you own the rights?
A: will ask the 8 ball
A: yes.
A: and the lefts
Q: I am not sure how you can reach to seoul. I know your arms are long, but
A: seoul, eh? now we are honing in on it
Q: and the tops and bottoms too?
A: yes all at the same time
Q: married the teacher? procreated students?
A: we procreated, yes. a great fantastic son
Q: amateur created professors?
Q: is he a yeti as well?
A: definitely not. they don't hire sasquatch hybrids to teach
A: you're quick
Q: hybrid is a very nice word
A: he also sleeps outside. in the blood i guess.
A: humans are hybrids with reptilians and hominids. no wonder you like it
Q: what first struck me about you was the poem form of your cover letter or vice versa
A: yes, i like to stay poetic. avoid the mundane use of language
Q: accomplished and then some
A: i like to play and keep things from getting stuck
A: accomplished? as in--- i am an accomplished person?
Q: are you a full time artist?
Q: accomplished yes not accompliced
Q: accomplished playing with language. done
A: i am a full time many things. i am an artist and you can see a wee bit of my art at http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. i am also a tantra yoga teacher. www.freewebs.com/lucidbody. i am also a nude model. no links there, thank you very much. and the writing is a serious thing for me as well.
A: yes, i accomplish playing best
Q: playing is very serious
Q: i know
A: one thing i do is called Lucid Play. www.freewebs.com/lucidplay
A: going into an altered state using tantric techniques and doing things from there that help develop new skills such as being more psychic. also is good for quantum activism
A: great when done in groups but can be done alone or as a duo
Q: now I get how you used my 8 ball
A: i like to play with my dreams, induce waking lucid dreams
A: how did i use it?
Q: do you get sleep paralysis, or waking REM?
A: i get illusion paralysis
Q: which is?
A: they stop working and i see the truth instead
A: i like to expose the whole illusion of this reality
A: playing helps
A: my writing site is called lucid fiction
A: asking for a whole new genre of writing that does that
A: sees beyond the illusions and admits to the truth
A: and doesn't pretend it is sci fi
Q: i thought that's what (your screen name) lucidfire meant
A: yes
A: bingo
Q: pretty slick
Q: anything you'd like to leave Lit K-os readers with?
A: being lucid. lucid words. lucid awareness of our own actual limitless power. and the control of those manipulating our reality.
Q: isn't control of those manipulating our reality a manipulation?
A: yes. i don't control them. i am lucid and aware of them.
A: and keep them from controlling me as much.
A: playing throws them off, that's for sure
Q: for sure
A: they like to think linearly
A: poetry is great because it is not. and in between the poems are gaps.
A: in between lines are gaps
A: we can make our escape through those
A: they can only hop word to word.
A: but if we play lucidly, we can pulse out from the gaps, the spaces in between, from the moment, rather than from chronology.
A: we can be free.
A: not only gaps between words. between waking and sleeping. thus induced waking dreams
A: we can follow our pulsing from the non manifest to the manifest and back.
A: and not just get stuck in one manifest moment following the next like glue
Q: is this done simultaneously?
A: everything is really simultaneous. and simultaneously, it is not.
Q: do you think there is space between moments? a kind of static?
A: that is one reason i like experimental literature, like the french new novelists, magical realism, things that allow that freedom from the usual synapses
A: and i hate commercial media because it traps people
A: and controls them. makes them think they are very limited beings. we are not.
A: there is much we can do that is miraculous.
A: i am also a healer. have facilitated that many times.
A: i am also literally a guru, have facilitated that many times there as well.
A: i live in the plane of the miraculous, which pulses from those gaps every moment.
Q: after this interview, what are you planning to do today?
A: teach tantra yoga. walk my usual 8 mile walk through the city, help someone heal a long term physical ailment. work as art director of mad hatters review. finish an article i was asked to do lengthen for a spiritual magazine.
Q: all that in one day? that's a lot.
A: and i am also an online psychic, tantra teacher too, so will be doing that.
A: it will be much more than just that today. that is a mild day for me. i also do many many things in one day. sort of absurd, really.
Q: when do you have time to write poetry?
A: i don't write a huge amount of poetry these days, you're right. i write in in the gaps.
Q: seems like a lot of poetry lives there
A: i write more fiction than poetry at the moment. but i just sent out one of my two poetry manuscripts.
A: yes!!!!!
A: i have high hopes for my poetry books. one especially, called how to be more than one animal.
A: poetry lives in the gaps. like dreams. like flying.
A: like wearing costumes that shine and are made out of nothing
A: like peaking around a corner and reading your neck
Q: lol
A: and it asking me questions
A: from korea. uh oh!
Q: yes, careful
A: no taunting
A: ra is actually not my favorite sun god
Q: I am not from here. I was born in New York City.
Q: Ah, sun gods
Q: who is your favorite?
A: my son is in new york at the moment.
A: Aten is pwetty kool
A: but i have learned to avoid all gods
Q: a good choice
A: they are tricky creatures
A: they like to play games
A: that i don't like
A: but i do love the sun itself
Q: not taunting?
A: actually, i never do that
A: i am one of the nicest people you'd ever meet
Q: I see that already, you don't need to say so. Your energy is fantastic.
A: i'm soooooo nice
Q: This was quite enjoyable. You made me laugh many times.
A: thank you. i am energy
Q: I wish I didn't have to sleep soon.
A: you cracked me up too. got to fall in the cracks. and stay there laughing. vibrating the sides of the cracks. mundane reality may be shaken and fall away with the tremors.
Q: you certainly are energy, that might make a good book title for you
A: one of my articles is called i am sacred fire. i wrote a few small books that were published small press. most had the word fire in them. energy.
A: tantra is energy. that is my name.
Q: beautiful
A: you're fantastic at this interviewing biz. i love it!!!!
Q: compliments always welcome, thank you.
A: thank you so very much for playing with me so lusciously
A: what are you going to dream
Q: let's chat again sometime. Stay in touch. And keep the work coming in. I don't want they play to end. Ever.
Q: I will dream of energy and fire and a bahamut holding it on its back
A: yes! yes! yes!
A: did you know that hominids hold their babies on their backs?
A: and they throw their breasts over their shoulders so their kids can nurse while they run?
A: i'm serious.
Q: incredible!
A: i used to make marzipan candies depicting that very thing.
Q: love to try one
A: hominids truly had very large breasts. i read about that in documented material.
Q: that was a first for me
A: marzipan should be sweetened with surprise and miracles as well as a touch of cinnamon
Q: useful research
Q: about the marzipan and the breasts
Q: Oh, I will dream of breasts as well, perhaps on the bahamut
A: i thought so. my candies sold well in hornby island canada where i was camping at the time.
A: and breasts will dream of you, as they are thrown behind the backs of hominids in the distant future, which is simultaneous
A: with the gaps of all existence, and the glorious light that spews out of them
Q: now and tomorrow in the cracks of chaos
A: chaos allows cracks, does it not? too much order keeps the gaps under arrest
Q: chaos certainly allows it all
A: and yesterday. physics suggest that time flows both ways out of the moment
A: even order
Q: i love it.
A: at times. whatever time is.
A: we are love
Q: goodnight, tantra -- and thanks. all the best.
A: good morning. dream for us all.