THE FOUNDER STORY (aka i made this shit for my mama)
There is this photo.
I've looked at it more times than I can count.
My mother, bright-eyed and radiant. One of the only ones I have of her.
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She was a magical mystic - the kind of woman who made you feel seen just by being in the same room. She believed in the unseen. she was a musician and a talented painter. she was so good at loving you at first sight and seeing and believing In the luminous thing underneath the skin that we don't have words for, but know is there. And she raised me in that knowing, even when the world around us was anything but safe or when she didn’t even have words for what her magic was doing.
She died when I was young. My stepfather - who had been abusive for as long as I could remember - took her life, and his own. What I've been able to piece together is that she was trying to leave. She was probably building the financial bridges to get herself out.
She never made it. there are a lot of stories out there about women like my mother trying to leave abusers.
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That loss shaped everything. The hole it left - in my childhood, in my sense of safety, in my photo albums - is something I carry. I have so few photos of my mom. So few moments captured. It's one of the reasons I photograph everything now: the places I love, the animals I rescue, the people I encounter. It's why couples sessions, friend sessions, and mom-and-baby sessions fill my heart in a way I can't fully articulate. Every photo feels like a small act of defiance against impermanence.
Years later, grief found me again. I lost a pregnancy - late term - the kind of loss that restructures you from the inside out. but that pregnancy loss was such a catalyst. during pregnancy was the only time I’ve experienced real unfiltered unconditional love and it was the greatest portal i’ve ever had the privilege to walk through.
I don't share these things for sympathy. I share them because they are the honest answer to the question I get asked most: why auras? Why this? how?
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Because I just needed a way to love on people. Deeply, visibly, in a way that left them with something tangible. A record. Proof that they were here - that their energy was real, that they were luminous.
I had a day job. but i believed in energy. I had this ache to plug into my community and just be a vehicle of love.
So I went looking for a way to do that.
What I found on the market was disappointing. The existing technology didn't feel right to me - not energetically, and not in terms of accessibility either. The price point put this kind of work out of reach for most people who should be doing it, and the experience felt cold in a way that conflicted with everything I knew this work to be.
Energy work is messy. It's raw. It's imperfect. It is deeply, stubbornly human. It deserves tools that reflect that.
So I built my own.
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I wrote the code. I engineered the camera system from scratch - what became the world's first aura videography system, capturing energy in motion rather than a single static frame. I did most of it half-feral in a forest camper, running on intuition and, honestly, a fair amount of grief-fueled stubbornness.
My first pop-up, I photographed a handful of people. Then more. Then I hit $5,000 in a single weekend. Then $70,000 in six months while still holding down my day job. quickly, things started catapulting in ways i wasn’t prepared for.
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Eventually I hit a point where I had to make a choice.
So I made it. I sold what didn't serve me. I walked away from a relationship with my biggest skeptic. I moved into a Sprinter van and took the show on the road. Somewhere between the mountains and the desert and the long stretches of highway, I found freedom. And love. And the version of myself I think my mother always saw even when I couldn’t.
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Today, Soma Lumin is a network of 25+ licensed guides operating across the country - healers, entrepreneurs, and mystics building real income with this technology. And a portion of every dollar we generate goes to mothers in need. Women who, like my mother, are trying to find a financial bridge out.
It's the most important thing I do. The most personal.
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Because at the end of the day, this business isn't really about auras.
It's about being seen. It's about leaving proof that you were here. It's about making sure that when someone needs to leave - really leave - they have the means to do it.
My mom couldn't stay. But she left me with enough magic to build something in her name.
This is for her. ILBYD.
