Soma Lumin (Aura Imaging Experience)
Answers provided by: Summer Ray (she/her), Founder of Soma LuminSome businesses don’t fit neatly into a single box and honestly, that’s where the magic lives. Introducing Soma Lumin who exists at the intersection of art, technology, embodiment, and access, offering something both futuristic and deeply human. Founded by queer technologist and experiential artist Summer Ray, Soma Lumin began as a personal exploration into intuition, the nervous system, and how we visualize emotional presence. What started as in-person aura imaging experiences quickly revealed a bigger question: who gets access to moments of wonder, reflection, and being seen? Rather than accept exclusivity as the norm, Summer expanded Soma Lumin into remote sessions and a licensable platform that brings this work into communities everywhere. At its core, Soma Lumin is about making embodiment and curiosity available especially for queer folks who’ve always had to build our own systems of care.
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Image provided by Summer Ray
1. Tell us about your journey. how did your queer-owned business come to life?
Soma Lumin came to life at the intersection of curiosity, embodiment, and access. Founder Summer Ray is a software developer and experiential artist who has long been fascinated by how intuition, technology, and the human nervous system intersect. It all began as a personal exploration: building tools to visualize energetic states and emotional presence.
After years of working in tech and brand strategy, Summer began offering aura imaging experiences in person at festivals and wellness gatherings. While the response was immediate and emotional, she quickly noticed a limitation: access. Not everyone could travel, afford high-end wellness experiences, or safely attend in-person sessions and feel comfortable mask-free in public. Soma Lumin expanded intentionally from there: into remote aura imaging sessions that could be accessed from anywhere, and eventually into a licensable software platform so other practitioners could bring the work into their own communities!
Image taken and provided by Summer Ray
2. What mission or values guide your work and how does being queer-owned shape that vision?
At its core, Soma Lumin is guided by the belief that embodiment, self-reflection, and wonder should not be luxuries! Being queer-owned deeply shapes that vision because queer people have long had to create our own systems of care, meaning, and visibility outside of traditional structures :)
Accessibility is a central value: financially, geographically, and physically. Remote sessions are priced intentionally to remain approachable, and the technology itself was built to work for people in rural areas, immunocompromised folks, and anyone who may not feel safe or seen in conventional wellness spaces.
Being queer-owned also means valuing multiplicity over hierarchy. Soma Lumin isn’t about a single “guru,” but about equipping many practitioners – many of them queer – to build sustainable income streams while offering something deeply human and connective!
Image taken and provided by Summer Ray
3. What challenges have you faced as a queer entrepreneur, and how have you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges has been building something that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. Soma Lumin lives between art, tech, wellness, and spirituality, each are spaces that can invite skepticism in different ways. As a queer founder working with both software and mysticism, Summer has often had to translate her work across worlds!
Another challenge has been visibility. Being openly queer while creating proprietary technology and stepping into leadership has led to plenty of scrutiny and dismissal. Overcoming that has meant grounding deeply in integrity: letting the work speak for itself, prioritizing lived experience over trendiness, and building slow, trust-based growth rather than chasing validation.
Community has also been a key support, especially from other queer founders who understand the unique emotional labor of holding this visibility and responsibility :)
4. How do you foster inclusivity and community through your business?
Image taken and provided by Summer Ray
Community is fostered through shared language, shared tools, and shared respect for boundaries and nervous systems. At the heart of this offering what Soma Lumin gives is not so much a portrait as it is a container where folks can feel safe to be witnessed and held as their true selves. More practically,sliding scale pricing is always available, from portrait sessions at events to payment plan options for folks that license the software.
Something also must be in the water as queer folks seem great at finding Soma Lumin at events – almost HALF of the couples portraits Summer has taken have been queer couples! We’re out here!!! What a joy and privilege to witness so much queer love!
5. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other queer folks looking to start their own venture?
Build for sustainability, not just visibility. It’s okay to move slower if it means creating something that actually supports your nervous system and your future! Queer entrepreneurs don’t need to replicate extractive models to be successful: we’re allowed to design businesses that feel humane, spacious, and collaborative. It’s possible, people!
Also: price your work so you can stay. Access doesn’t mean self-sacrifice.
6. What does "queer joy" mean to you, and how do you create or celebrate it in your space?
Soma Lumin celebrates queer joy by creating moments where people can see themselves differently, sometimes even for the first time, and feel a sense of softness and curiosity about themselves rather than scrutiny.
There’s joy in the colors, yes, we take portraits that make folks look like rainbows for crying outloud, but even more joy is found in the permission to pause, to be curious about oneself, and to exist limitlessly!
Image taken and provided by Summer Ray
7. Who are some queer creators, leaders, or businesses that inspire you right now?
She’s especially inspired by queer technologists, somatic practitioners, and artists who prioritize accessibility and collective care, as well as businesses like Everywhere Is Queer that actively map and uplift queer-owned ecosystems. Chani Nichols, Lundy Ramos, Fran Dunaway, and many more are top of the list!
