Venus Rising Magazine

Inside the Sacred World of Art Activations

   There are women who build businesses and there are women who build sanctuaries. Lunar, the visionary behind Art Activations, does both. With thirteen years of experience, an art teacher, mother to a five-year-old, content creator, marketing strategist, and retreat curator, Lunar speaks with the grounded clarity of someone who has lived many lifetimes within one. She grew up fast and learned resilience through the chaos of experience. She lost both of her parents. Somewhere within instability she discovered something powerful; creativity and community can be a returning to self. Art Activations was born from that becoming. 

   After losing both of her parents, Lunar found herself navigating lessons of resilience while carrying the quiet weight of grief. Creativity turned sanctuary as she carried herself through the river of loss so many of us experience. Art-making, nature, ritual, and authentic connection weren’t hobbies, they were self prescribed medicine. An act of bravery in a world built on shame. “Creativity and connection were the threads that kept pulling me back to myself,” she shares.

   In the midst of her own healing, she began to witness something profound: when women gather without the need to perform, fix, or compete, something ancient reawakens. Walls fall and stories surface, bubbling up and softening everything they touch. “I want my work to help women remember who they are beneath the layers of expectation.” she tells me. Expression becomes natural when women congregate. 

  The concept was first dreamed into being with a close friend who was both an art and yoga teacher. Plans moved back and forth between them, evolving through conversation and visionary communication. By Winter 2022, Art Activations was formally established. 

   Like many organic movements, it grew through a revolving door of friendships and collaborations. Leaders emerged and supported the community over time. It began intimately, held on Lunar’s back deck. This space had already been created as a sanctuary for her family.  After several seasonal gatherings, the vision expanded into larger, more awe inspiring natural locations across Aotearoa. 

   Art Activations offers women’s retreats centered on ritual, rest, and reconnection. Each experience is carefully curated by blending art-making, movement, sound journeys, somatic practices, astrology, numerology, intentional ceremony, and nature immersion. Retreats are primarily held in Aotearoa, New Zealand, on landscapes that invite grounding. The natural world is not a backdrop, it is an active participant. These elements become part of the architecture of healing. Lunar puts so much intention into what she does. 

   An upcoming international expansion, the Aradiaa Retreat in Uluwatu, Bali, will be co-facilitated alongside Lunar’s partner and international breathwork facilitator Loren Honey. This evolution is a dream come real. Every retreat includes guest hosts: sound healers, yoga teachers, DJs, astrologers, somatic dance facilitators. The common thread is creative expression. Art remains at the heart of every gathering. One of the most affirming aspects for Lunar is what happens after each retreat ends. “You’d think I would feel drained,” she reflects. “But I feel inspired. Full of life and energy.” 

That aliveness is a tell tale sign of alignment. The feeling of faith, hope and joy that overcomes us when we set foot on the right path. Something she is both experiencing and causing a ripple of. As Lunar rises, she brings along other women to share in that curriculum. In these spaces, no one rushes to fix anything. Social hierarchies dissolve and connection is not forced. When women feel safe enough, expression flows naturally. Facilitators of this safety, like Lunar, are so important to a thriving community of women.

   If there was one intimidating aspect of becoming a community organizer, it was this: trusting that her voice and vision were enough. Leadership often arrives packaged as dominance and over pushed into perfection. Lunar rejected that and chose to practice integrity. “I learned that leadership doesn’t require someone to be louder than the rest,” she says. “It requires truth.”

   Her 13 years of teaching prepared her in ways she didn’t initially recognize. She has worked across year levels, supported after-school programs, and taught art to children and adults with disabilities. Yet at one point in her teaching career, she felt herself losing her spark. The structure of career was there but the fire of passion and creative expression fell lacking. In a push back, she founded Creative Creatures, an after-school arts program for young people. That venture reignited her connection to art as joy rather than obligation. Today, she continues to run Creative Creatures while working as a Visual Arts Specialist for 9-13 year olds.

   On paper Lunar’s life looks multifaceted: two businesses, teaching, content creation, UGC work, motherhood but to her, none of it feels fragmented. “It’s all woven,” she explains. “Delicately interconnected.” a wisdom in her tone. The retreats, the classroom, the online content, the child she’s raising are expressions of the same philosophy: creativity is healing. Community is medicine and women deserve spaces where they can exist without shrinking.

   She wants women to feel safe enough to soften and brave enough to take up space. She wants them to know that they aren’t alone. The power of that ripple cannot be overstated. When a woman trusts herself more deeply, it affects her children, relationships, work and community. It shifts how she speaks and how she moves. This work is so meaningful. 

   Art Activations is not about aesthetic retreats or curated perfection. It’s about the sacred pause. It is about witnessing and being witnessed. It is about creation and creating your own reality. In a world that constantly asks women to produce, Lunar is offering something radical; space to simply be.

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