The Oneiromancer: A Teaching Story for Dreamers, Artists, Visionaries
May you walk in beauty
Emalani is a multimedia publication service by Emma Emalani Bennett, an author, teacher, and transpersonal empowerment coach intended to guide you towards empowerment by integrating your whole self, which gives you unrestricted access to your personal power. You'll receive guidance on self-love, leadership, success, and wealth, drawing from various disciplines such as psychobiology, transpersonal psychology, and spirituality.
Hello Visionary, yes that’s you,
Today we are going to do something a little different. I have a teaching story for you. A rallying call to fiercely embody all that you are and show the world your brilliance.
🥂 Cheers to post # 222 — that was a lot of practice. There’s party favors in this post. Easter eggs, a Playlist for the Dreamers, goodies towards the end. Enjoy!
Oneiromancer, The Dream Reader
In the verdant city of Luthiel with greenery interspersed through architecture, infrastructure, and used in the design of the city at every opportunity, where soft moss padded the cobblestone streets, and where mists persisted like a lingering breath fogging panes of glass, there lived a dream-seer named Irene who could vividly see visions in both waking and sleeping moments. Like a virtual simulation of reality, she could even walk about, touch things, smell things, hear things, pluck a perfectly ripe sugarbee apple with notes of honey, caramel, and molasses off of a tree and eat it while feeling the soft, cool breeze on her skin.
She did not predict the future as people imagined. There were no celestial omens, dogs formed by dregs of tea leaves at the bottom of a delicate porcelain cup, no koan riddles from unseen deities, or tarot cards foretelling of meeting and marrying a handsome stranger. Instead, she read the energy of the present so deeply, so wholly, that the shape of things yet to come became clear.
Irene was an oneiromancer—a cartographer of dreams, drawing the maps of space, time, and dimension that were more spherical than linear, through the energies she felt in those ambiguous, half-lit spaces between sleep and wakefulness. Rather than fortune telling or prophesying, oneiromancy was in truth the gift of perceiving la durée—pure duration, the Eternal Constant—in which past, present, and future all exist at once, overlapping and intertwined like a ball of yarn composed of ethereal shimmering, golden materials of potential and possibility. People came to her, desperate for assurance of their fates, but she would not give them certainty, which was not hers to give to anyone. “The future is never set,” she would say. “It is always in the process of creation.”
One evening, just before closing, as the amber glow of the street lamps flickered and yawned awake against the dusky sky streaked with the last pastel cotton candy wisps of purple, orange, and pink acquiescing to the darker bruised shades of moonlit night, the rain-slicked windows of her charming stationery and bookshop brimming with pen nibs, perfumed ink of all colours, sheaths of textured paper, and reams of grand tales, a tall, slender man with an enigmatic smile like the awakened prince Siddhartha arrived. His presence was carried with a quiet and beautiful intensity and sounded with the tinkling of a bell on the door reverberating like a lingering memory.* David laid payment and his dream token—a single silver feather—on the counter where she had been readying for close at the till, studiously bent over a ledger. His arrival had broken the reverie of concentration. She looked up inquisitively with a questioning eyebrow raised at him and a slight quirk of her mouth.
*Yoin (余韻), Japanese, is the sound of a bell after it has been rung and is also the word for when a moving experience creates a profound emotional reverberation; a book, work of art, movie, lover’s kiss, some other touching moment echoing in memory for a long time to come.
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“A dream,” he explained. “I’ve had it every night. And it is not mine alone.”
Irene studied him with an unreadable yet compassionate expression. His gentle energy rippled like a pool gently disturbed by unseen tides. He didn’t seem to mind the wordlessness, didn’t attempt to fill the spaces with stream of consciousness chatter and motion. She smiled politely and led him to the citrine and sapphire velvet cushions of a maximalist jewel box sitting room where there was a generous down feather sofa with a hammered, burnished gold-coloured coffee table and two matching wingback chairs in front of it. Along the way, she locked the door. She lit a large candle in a jar that smelled of tuberose and sandalwood.
There was a rose quartz counter with a robin’s egg blue coloured electric kettle that she put to work after washing her hands. Underneath the countertop, there were shelves and drawers. From one of the shelves, she retrieved a wooden box and two calacatta violet marble bowls, one smaller and one larger, to put atop the coffee table. Into the smaller bowl, she poured room temperature water. From the wooden box, she brought out a large dried lotus flower, which she put into the smaller bowl to soak. Once the water boiled, she poured it into the larger calacatta violet marble bowl that sat atop the coffee table, after which she set the lotus flower into the center and delicately unfolded the petals.
With a small wooden bowl, she scooped up the lotus-steeped water into a cream and blue porcelain teacup with scalloped edges sitting atop a matching saucer, after which she served him with a warm smile.
She asked him, “Are you feeling relaxed and comfortable?”
“Very much so, thank you,” he nodded and smiled back.
David’s silver feather dream token being offered as he requested support was symbolic of permission to enter dreams with him and his consent to assistance. After tea and chatting a bit, she held the dream token between her hands in a prayer position, brought his token to her forehead in reverential supplication, and whispered her humble thanks to Oneiros, god of dreams.
“You know what to do,” she said tenderly, “lie down.”
David took his shoes off and laid down on the ivory linen sofa. Irene pulled up a chair upholstered with whimsical ivory and indigo linen toile contrasting against dark wood grain and carved arms that came to a scrolled curve at the ends to sit close. The arms of the chair had their own professor’s elbow patches with the same tasteful toile. She leaned forward from the chair to lightly touch a hand to his forehead and murmured the spell of Oneiros in a hushed, rhythmic, and otherworldly lilting cadence.
By silver thread and twilight’s hush,
Where dreams are spun in velvet dusk,
Let shadow soften, sorrow cease,
And grant the soul a breath of peace.
By star-drift’s sigh and whispering tide,
Unravel thought, let hush abide.
Here in the threshold’s sacred keep,
Surrender now, descend to sleep.
Oh, Oneiros, keeper of night’s embrace,
Lift the Beloved’s veil, dissolve all trace
Of waking weight and weary mind,
To realms where wonder is unconfined.
May mercy cradle, may silence mend,
May time dissolve and gently bend.
Sink into stillness, soft and deep,
Where love and longing intertwine in sleep.
She softly sank back into the chair’s plush padding, rested her arms on the chair arms, and dark brown eyelashes fluttered shut over her ponderous violet and gold-speckled eyes. The spell guided him into a hypnagogic state between sleep and waking and she followed along with him, stepping lightly into the shared terroir of dreams and looking reassuringly to him. The vision revealed itself to the both of them—a city not unlike Luthien in ruins, smoke curling against a blood-red sky, the taste of iron like a coin in the mouth and bitter sorrow carrying remnants of wails in the wind. This was a possibility, one she could feel growing stronger with time’s seamless paradox of flow and constancy.
David gasped. “What does it mean?” he asked.
Irene exhaled softly. “People losing their way will leave a city in ruins.”
His expression darkened. “And if no one changes course?”
“That is already what is happening.”
“Oh,” his eyebrows settled and relaxed as awareness dawned on him.
“You’re the Hierophant, your counsel is needed,” Irene elucidated.
David’s breath steadied, his gaze distant as if he were staring through time itself.
Irene watched him carefully. The dream had unsettled him at first but now stirred something within him. A silken ribbon of sensory perception was beginning to unravel itself from a gift box with revelatory contents that he had been initially terrified may be Pandora’s box but now he was feeling more positive expectancy.
He ran a hand through his dark champagne hair. “If I am the Hierophant, then I must guide. But guide who? And how?”
Irene placed a hand over his. “You already know. The world doesn’t need more people exerting power over by way of domination—it needs those who remind others of their own power. The Hierophant does not command. He illuminates.”
The dreamscape before them shimmered, shifting like ink in water.
An angelic figure with hair like a waterfall of fire held a vessel, pouring light from one cup into another. “You are the bridge between inspiration and form,” the Childlike Empress Haniel whispered in a voice as subtle as cloudy watercolor spreading across paper. “The bridge from vision to creation. The artist who makes the unseen, seen.”
David felt a door of his own consciousness fling open, a new yet preexisting and dormant part of himself emancipated.
The second figure, the wizard Merlin cloaked in celestial blue with snowflakes falling gracefully all around, gazed at him with twinkling emerald eyes. “Wisdom is the ability to communicate with the Unseen and transmission of wisdom is to translate what you ascertain for others whether they can readily understand it or not—they will in divine time,” he said. “Your voice is a torch in the dark, but only if you dare to light it.”
David felt another door unlock, more of his own essence available to him.
The third figure rose, luminous and golden, as if made of dawn itself. This figure seemed to be a fairy queen like Titania. “Awaken,” she called, the timbre of her voice both thunderous and sonorous with the tone of a soprano, sending vibrations shivering through the body. “The world waits for those who have the courage to rise.”
David felt the pull of something vast, a realization of the enormity of his own being.
The fourth figure wore a mask of bone and silken robes of violet so dark it seemed nearly black, yet Death’s presence was gentle, characterized by what is called mono no aware in Japanese, the touching sadness of ephemera. “Let the old die away in peace,” she consoled. “Not only in sorrow, but also in holy wonderment, for grief prostrates one to the Great Mystery.”
The fifth figure was a tranquil friar in brown robes, the characteristic cincture tied with three knots around his waist, carrying a lantern in one hand. He removed the hood from his face, revealing a jovial, kind countenance. “My son, do not fear solitude,” he advised. “Great epiphanies are not found in noise, but in silence. Step away, retreat, and return with the jewels only you can bring.”
The final figure stepped forward, Diana, goddess of the hunt, protector of the innocent, and an immortal beauty—life unveiling her holy face. She placed a hand on his chest. “True power is not force, willfulness, or never being afraid,” she said. “It is the courage to walk in beauty, to respond to and move with the rhythm of your soul and become a shaper of the world when it would rather you stay silent and kept controlled.”
“Walk in beauty” is a Navajo phrase referring to “hózhó,” beauty being a central force of this universe encompassing harmony, balance, and wellbeing. To walk in beauty means to live in balance, communion, and harmony with nature and all living things. It’s also a spiritual path of reverence for the sacredness of life.
David’s heart soared. He saw it now—the ruin of the city was not merely the destruction of buildings, it was the dying of dreams. It was the collapse of voices left unheard, of ideas left unspoken, brilliance left buried in fears of rejection and failure, and hearts like birds with clipped wings.
The dreamscape flickered, fading into silver mist taking the final form of a feather before evanescing. Irene’s presence steadied him.
“You see now?” she asked.
David opened his eyes, no longer uncertain. He was meant to awaken others, to remind them of the fire within their own chests, to teach them that their voices mattered, that hope prevails.
He was not just the Hierophant.
He was the Call.
And the world was waiting to answer.
“Good to see your handsome face again, David,” Irene beamed.
David gathered her in his arms, a breath of warmth and longing passing between them before his lips claimed hers in a kiss that was both deep, unrelenting, and unhurried—it was the kind of kiss that carried the essence of destiny intertwined, of souls that had always been one in two bodies.
His hands traced the curve of her back, pulling her closer as if he could press their very souls to meld together, erasing the space that had ever existed between them. Their lips moved in a slow intimacy, a silent promise sealed in every lingering touch. The kiss deepened, breaths mingling, time unraveling into something infinite.
🪺 Easter Eggs Galore
David’s name means beloved. “Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord” ;) Irene’s name means peace. Sugarbee apples are my favorite, try one. Yes, there are literary nods to J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Erin Morgenstern, Herman Hesse (Siddhartha the buddha arrived, get it? har har), and Khalil Gibran. Neverending Story, yes you are not seeing things. Guess the Chef’s Table episode. In texts of Sufi mysticism, God, Source, Universe is referred to as the Beloved. ‘Power over’ refers to anthropologist Riane Eisler’s Chalice and the Blade.
Gently Disturbed is a jazz song by Israeli artist Avishai Cohen, my creative mentor and friend Alexandre’s favorite ;) Je te remercie beaucoup, thank you so much for your support and encouragement to learn to write like musicians play jazz music all these years… nearly eight!
In Jewish lore, Haniel, also known as Anael or Hanael, is an angel associated with the planet Venus and the sephirah Netzach (representative of Eternity, Endless Perpetuity), often considered one of the seven archangels, and is the angel of joy and grace. Haniel is a gentle angel that helps people integrate all aspects of themselves, including strengths, setbacks, and shadows—she is the angel that supports us in returning to wholeness. Her name drop is a prayer and blessing for you to be happily at home in yourself. I know the dude angels are popular—Raphael, Michael, Gabriel—Haniel is a badass.
If you know I am talking about Henri Bergson and not macarons, that is impressive. Good job. Oneiros is another name of Morpheus, which you may know from the Sandman graphic novels and/or show. Yes, Death is inspired by Death of the Endless, Morpheus’ sister. A 6-card tarot spread with only major arcana contributed to the story.
Many issues of House Beautiful and Veranda and a ravenous love for HomeGoods and Restoration Hardware lend me the ability to write about interior design. I learned about mono no aware from a Japanese art history course. If you watch Dark Winds, which is a show that has a significant presence of the Navajo or Diné language, they say '“Walk in beauty.” This does not mean, “Don thy pink feather boa and slaaaayyy”—the meaning is much deeper than that and I hope I’ve enlightened you as to how with this teaching story.
I have had a Denise Linn Sacred Traveler oracle card deck that has this Wondrous Universe wizard card with these words on it. It took me many years to finally get it. Now, it’s my favorite.
Mahalo, thank you for reading.
❤️ Emma
A Playlist for the Dreamers
Oneiromancy, the practice of dream divination, has a long history in various cultures, with some believing dreams are messages from gods or the dead. An oneiromancer is a person who practices dream divination. The word ‘oneiromancer’ comes from the Greek words ‘oneiros’ (dream) and ‘-mancy’ (divination). In Greek mythology, Oneiros (Ὄνειρος, singular) or Oneiroi (Ὄνειροι, plural) refers to the personification of dreams, often depicted as the sons of Nyx (Night) and brothers of Hypnos (Sleep). In ancient civilizations like Greece, Egypt, and Babylonia, dream interpreters often held significant social and political influence.
Oneiromancy as dream divination or dreamwork still prevails in spiritual and cultural practices. Shamans work with dreams and the symbolic realm.
“We live only to discover beauty. All else is waiting”
—Khalil Gibran
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My energy transforms deep, hard, and fast. I’ve transmuted the energy of some of the most harrowing experiences any human being could have — there was human trafficking in my family, my ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) score was an 8 out of 10, I’ve been waterboarded, locked up in isolation for a year, in a coma for a month. And yes, I’ve had a near death experience that showed me things people rarely get to see. People have asked me, with everything I’ve been through how can I still be positive and loving?
Because I chose to. Because I have the ability to take on some of the darkest energies and bring the light. I know how to hold light. You do too. We all have our paths of learning how to wield the power to choose.
What I do as a a transmuter, channeler, mystic, soul alchemist, shaman, master of the subconscious realm (leader, speaker, author, guide, coach, artist in muggle terms) defies logic. The results though, tend to be evident. People start making power moves in their careers, finances, relationships, and all areas of their lives. I have Scorpio, ruled by Pluto, planet of mystery, transformation, and power, God of the Underworld, in my 10th house, the house of how I am to be in service to this world. I also have Pluto in Scorpio, Pluto in 9th house, which involves publishing and broadcasting, including digital.
By shaman, I don’t mean that I don feathers and beat drums. I have the ability to move between the four levels of reality — objective, subjective, symbolic, and holistic — at will. Most people are stuck on the objective, Newtonian cause-and-effect level of reality, the subjective Cartesian “I think therefore I am” level of reality is a bit more common. The symbolic is where few dare to go, the underworld of symbols, dreams, nightmares, the subconscious, and pure magic — I love to play here. The holistic is often thought to be the world of the enlightened, of Buddha, Jesus, saints like Teresa of Ávila or perhaps the Dalai Lama. We all have the ability to experience all four. A shaman specifically learns how to do this with integrity to heal and empower.
To facilitate change in the smoothest, most effective way possible, it is necessary to involve the third level. I can help with this.
If you want to work with me on transformation that is happening in your life, book a free 15 minute discovery call with me to see if I am the teacher that you, the student, are ready for.
With Love and Gratitude,
© Emma Bennett
Author of Written into Reality: The Art of Co-creating Your Dreams to Life, Founder, Creative Director of Emalani Publishing
About Emma
Just as she graduated from university, Emma Bennett slipped on a spill in the stairwell and her life was forever altered in unimaginable ways. Since then, Emma has leveraged conscious adaptation to heal and create change through neuroplasticity, which changed her mind about what it means to live creatively. Now, Emma writes, speaks, and teaches on how to leverage the hidden powers of their remarkable brains, nervous systems, bodies, and spirits.
Emma brings together the realms of tarot, astrology, positive neuroplasticity, and transpersonal (beyond self, higher consciousness) development. Her approach is psychobiologically-informed, offering a holistic perspective on personal development that goes beyond traditional measures.
With her experience working with multinational NGOs, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies, including the UNDP, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Hulu, NBCUniversal, and Disney, Emma possesses a wealth of knowledge that she integrates into her coaching services. To date, she has connected with people from over 94 different countries.
Emma's Education
B.A. Study of problems of Technological, Cultural, Political, Economic, and Environmental Globalization requiring innovative approaches to understanding of power, exchange, creativity, and social life
A.A. Behavioral sciences studies encompassing general, cognitive, neurological, physiological, developmental, intercultural, abnormal, personality, and social psychology.
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“Emma weaves magic with her words, her energy and her wisdom. Her encyclopedic knowledge resides at the intersection of brain science, personal development, marketing, spiritual teachings and real life experience from the school of hard knocks. Her intuition-led coaching style gently guides and invites self reflection, empowering each individual to discover their own path and their own unique way of sharing their gifts... I call it ‘Soul alignment on steroids’.”
— Tammy
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