My Story
I'M MONICA ECHEGARRETA.
Over the course of my life, I’ve been many things, and it seems I’m still all of them at once. Teacher with a degree in Visual Arts from Central University of Venezuela; art researcher and historian; a master’s in Literature from Pontifical Xavierian University of Bogotá; Hatha and Vinyasa yoga instructor and practitioner; writer and creative guide. Also a traveler, a reader, keeper of two cats, tarot enthusiast, embroiderer of worlds, and tireless mountain climber.
I like to think I’m not a single version of myself, but a small cosmos in motion, made of callings, passions, questions, and contradictions.
Lunaria Ritual was born from that weave. Here, you’ll find that writing shows up as a ritual of connection: with the word, with the body, with the cycles that transform us.
Si agregar “a master’s” te rompe el ritmo de la lista (los demás ítems no llevan artículo), déjalo como “master’s in Literature” y queda igual de correcto.
About Lunaria Ritual
Lunaria Ritual is a space devoted to writing, understood as a creative, intimate, and symbolic gesture. A place where writing answers to listening, to caring for the inner voice.
The name comes from «lunaria», a flowering plant with purple, white, or pink petals that, as it dries, reveals what’s inside: seeds silvery as moons, like little mirrors. Its scientific name is Lunaria annua. It’s typically planted in winter and blooms in spring and summer; it’s also known as the moon plant or the money plant. Native to North America, Europe, and parts of Asia, and now widely naturalized elsewhere, it grows in shaded, damp places, as if it needed silence to transform. It’s a plant of transition and memory. It’s gathered once the color has faded, once it shows what remains.
That’s how I imagine writing in this place. Like lunaria, moving through silences and transformations until it reveals what it holds inside. Every word can be a seed, a mirror, a moon.
That’s why this place is called Lunaria Ritual: lunaria, for what writing reveals when it’s given time; ritual, for the gestures we return to again and again. Because writing is, at least for me, a way of inhabiting time with our hands, our ink, and our souls.
A New Cycle
I’ve spent many years working alongside other people. I’ve been a teacher of Literature, Spanish, Creative Writing and even Yoga. A teacher of many things. Along the way, I discovered that one of the things that move me most is helping others reach their writing dreams. For me, teaching is sharing, listening, and offering presence. It’s learning together. It deepens my own practice every time I guide someone else’s. Because at its heart, teaching is simply being there.
For a while, I built my early work in partnership with others, until life led me to create my own space, one that reflects who I am, how I guide people, and how I understand writing.
Lunaria Ritual was born from this journey, and it’s where I now honor and accompany the writing of others.
Thank you for being here.