Anna at Dunbarton Oaks

Photographer: Richard Hood

Dawn Drake and Zapote at Wisteria's Cornstalk Festival

Kenny Klein and Odd's Bodkins: Part 2: Wisteria's Cornstalk Festival

Kenny Klein and Odd's Bodkin's: Part 1: Kenny Klein's early years

Dawn Drake & ZapOte perform at Wisteria's Cornstalk Festival Friday 8/1 at 9PM on the Main Stage

Ariana Lightningstorm

Ariana is the lead singer, songwriter, and band leader of KIVA. Ariana’s nurturing connection to music in her current life starts as early as the womb. Her parents met at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY where her mother, the first female trombone major at Eastman, graduated with honors and her dad graduated as a trumpet major. Ariana’s mom (Frances Fox – now retired) was a middle school band director in Montgomery County for over 30 years. Ariana also has a famous (in Italy) operatic aunt (Barbara Demaio Caprilli) who now teaches in the US. With this family legacy and having grown up performing in choirs and bands herself, Ariana was destined to have music be a major part of her life.

At the age of 19, having searched for many years, Ariana discovered the local pagan community and found her home and inspiration to write songs and chants for the first time in her life. Diana McFadden and Ariana worked together on her first song, Garlands and Lightning and they both joined the band Pomegranate shortly thereafter. In Pomegranate Ariana grew musically and learned about doing folk music in the Earth based spirituality communities.

Pomegranate recorded a tape together in 1988 and then the band broke up in 1989. While performing with Pomegranate, Ariana also was involved in helping to found the Maryland based community called Free Spirit Alliance. This community is still thriving today and holds a yearly summer festival at which her current band, KIVA, usually plays.

In spring of 1989 the idea of KIVA was born. Ariana sought spiritual guidance while at a gathering called Rites of Spring in the form of joining a 4 hour sweat lodge with a group of wonderful women who, along with the spirits of the lodge, encouraged her to begin a new band. The next day, she was approached by two women who had no idea that she was forming a new band but wanted to join whatever she happened to be doing next musically. One of them, Diana McFadden, KIVA’s resident cello, mandolin, and guitar player, is still in the band today. While coming up with a list of possible names for the group Ariana thought to honor the birthing of this new band from her experience in the women’s sweat lodge. From somewhere within her came the idea of the name, KIVA, and that’s the name that felt correct for what she envisioned the vehicle for her music to be.

What Ariana wanted to do with KIVA was to give KIVA’s audience the experience of sacred space through KIVA’s music. She wanted to create a space where people could feel free to be themselves and transform, heal and have a great time. Most of all she wanted to create magic and beauty with her music. The universe gave her the opportunity to try out this vision of hers. Ariana was laid off just before the summer festival season of 1990 so she traveled to several festivals and since she was a singer/songwriter who didn’t play guitar or drums she asked the musicians who were already at the festivals to join her on stage to perform chants and some songs.

KIVA started recording in 1990 and has done many recordings over the years. Ariana was nominated for the DC Wammie! Awards in 1996 and 1998 as "Best New Age Female Vocalist". WAMA closed that category of the Wammies as of 1999. One of Ariana’s greatest musical inspirations is Peter Gabriel and she has a couple of wonderful stories about seeing him in concert. Ariana was also the director and manager of a very successful monthly concert series called Cerridwin’s Coffeehouse from 1995 to 2005 featuring local and international bands and performers.

In 2006 Ariana and Amikaeyla Proudfoot Gaston joined together to create a powerful and percussive chant album called Oshun Gaia with chants and rhythms from around the world and started the Oshun Gaia Project in order to share their voices and chant with the world. Oshun Gaia is the crux of where spirit meets flesh, sound meets soul, and water meets earth. Oshun is the Orisha Goddess of fresh water - the energy of bounty, blessings, home, and hearth. Gaia is Mother Earth. Her name is from the Greek noun for "land". Gaia was born from Chaos, the great void, and with her came the god of love, Eros. She gave birth to the ocean and the sky. Here is where breath, song, chant, drum and dance are one - where spirit is called by one voice and many... one tradition and many. We are blessed to have the opportunity to share years of teaching by many prophets of song who have led us down this road of spiritual teachings and ancient traditions of healing through the medicine of music. Join us as we travel through the lush harmonies, powerful drumming, and enchanting ritual of ancestral calling. Oshun Gaia is available through CDBaby.com as well as from KIVA’s and Oshun Gaia’s websites.

Ariana has performed with KIVA, Oshun Gaia, Pomegranate, Kathleen Hannan, Tribe of Spirit, Wynne Paris (Caravan) and John Wubbenhorst (Facing East) locally and as far away as England at the Billingham International Folklore Festival with KIVA and in Bali, Indonesia, with Tribe of Spirit at the Bali Arts Festival. She also is a practitioner of palmistry, tarot and handwriting analysis as well as being a body worker, Rebirther Breathworker, and healer. As a reader she has been running a booth and working at the MD Renaissance Festival for 28 years now. Ariana has been practicing Rebirthing Breathwork for over 7 years and has a thriving practice in Maryland out of her home in Bowie. She is also very sought after as a reader for parties and events in the DC area. She teaches classes every once in a while on Palmistry and Tarot reading. Right now she’s learning how to do tea leaf reading.

More details about Ariana

Ariana is a foodie and wine enthusiast. She loves to go to wine festivals and food events. She loves experimenting with cooking baking and she’s often thought of starting a blog for pagan foodies including recipes, restaurant picks and pans and her spiritual connection with food. Ariana chose her name when she was 14 and has a last name of “Lightningstorm.” She is also a minister and just did her first legal wedding (she’s done others that weren’t legally binding) at the Maryland Faerie Festival 2010. The bride was quoted to say “who says you can’t grow up to be a fairy princess?” There are wonderful photos and videos of the wedding on her Facebook page. Ariana also loves gardening and has over 9 types of heirloom tomatoes in her rented suburban home’s front yard. One of her bandmates said it’s a good use of a suburban yard (instead of just cultivating grass). So far this year Ariana has planted, heirloom tomatoes, green beans, cranberry beans, rainbow swiss chard, poppy flowers, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon, sweet peppers, foxglove, bee balm, black and red gooseberries, assorted “hummingbird flower mix”, basil, sage, oregano, French and English and golden thyme, chocolate mint, and romaine lettuce. She finds it really fun to watch all that grow and go out and pick some lettuce and make a salad with it. That’s connecting with the Earth and Mother Nature in a very direct way.

Before the internet was something that everyone knew about and used Ariana was involved with her dad’s company that built the largest special education network in the world called SpecialNet. For his company she was doing tech support and later when she worked for an internet provider she learned to do basic website design which she still does from time to time for herself and friends.

Another detail about Ariana is that she had a sister, Amy, who passed in June 2002. She was about 7 years younger than Ariana. Ariana has a memorial page that she put together with pictures of Amy that tell a story of Amy’s life. http://www.kivasong.com/old_files/AmyMemorial/amymemorial.html

Currently, Ariana is happily single and is open to being happily partnered, too, if that is “in the cards” for her.

One of Ariana’s friends had this to say about her…

“Here’s a list of things I thank you for.

1) Being a great friend.
2) Introducing me to the pagan community in the DC Metro area.
3) Showing me how a person can thrive under their own skills, creative talents and determination as independent operators.
4) Stones Rising, Free Spirit, and magnificent outdoor events.
5) Holistic and non-toxic remedies and gluten-free cooking.
6) Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! Now, I listen to it with (his partner) Sharon every Saturday.
7) Shifting and growing inside the paradigms you've adopted. I have seen you become a better friend day by day because you won't be content to simply claim wisdom.
8) Cheese. I love cheese. Thank goodness you do, too.
9) Believing in me when both my spouses did not and when one tried to destroy me.
10) Introducing me to incredible, decent friends”
Ariana thought “hmmm… it’s good to hear the eulogy while she’s still here to enjoy it…”

More About Ariana and her healing work

Ariana has been studying and practicing various forms of energetic healing for over 25 years. She studied psychic healing, shiatsu and massage therapy, all before she was 20 and in the last several years she has trained in Reiki, Healing Touch, Quantum Touch and Rebirthing Breathwork.

Shiatsu
Shiatsu (Japanese from shi, meaning finger, and atsu, meaning pressure) is a traditional Japanese hands-on therapy based on anatomical and physiological theory and is regulated as a licensed medical therapy with the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Japan. Shiatsu is an evolving form. Various styles (called Derivative Shiatsu) incorporate (to differing degrees) aspects of Japanese massage traditions, Chinese Medicine practice, and "Western" anatomy and physiology.
(This description was taken from Wikipedia.)
Reiki
Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.
The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and Ki which is "life force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life force energy."

A treatment feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you. Reiki treats the whole person including body, emotions, mind and spirit creating many beneficial effects that include relaxation and feelings of peace, security and wellbeing. Many have reported miraculous results.
(This description was taken from The International Center for Reiki Training.)

Healing Touch
Healing Touch is a relaxing, nurturing energy therapy. Gentle touch assists in balancing your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Healing Touch works with your energy field to support your natural ability to heal. It is safe for all ages and works in harmony with standard medical care.
(This description was taken from the The Healing Touch International website.)
Energy-Based Healing is a form of therapy in which the practitioner taps into the healing energy of the Universal Energy Field and becomes a conduit for that energy, allowing it to flow into the body of the client to aid the client's physical healing. There are several different healing techniques which come under the umbrella of energy healing; among these are Healing Touch, Reiki, Polarity Therapy, and several others. The common characteristic among these energy-based healing techniques is that the healer manipulates one or more of the client's own energy fields or patterns so as to restore proper balance and harmony to those patterns on many levels; which promotes healing and proper functioning of the physical body.
(This description was taken from the Healing Touch of The Greater Washington Area web site.)

Quantum Touch
Quantum-Touch is an energy healing modality that applies the principles of resonance and entrainment to facilitate healing. Practitioners learn to focus and amplify life-force energy (known as "chi" in Chinese and "prana" in Sanskrit) by combining various breathing and body awareness exercises. When the practitioner resonates at a high frequency, the client often entrains to, or matches, the higher frequency, thereby facilitating healing using the body's biological intelligence. Life-force energy affects matter on the quantum, subatomic level and works its way up through atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and structure.
(This description was taken from the Quantum Touch web site.)

Rebirthing Breathwork
Rebirthing Breathwork is a safe, gentle, yet powerful process of conscious, connected energy breathing which helps you to identify and dissolve negative limiting thoughts, suppressed feelings and emotions and restrictive energy patterns retained in the body traceable through life back to birth and or conception. A powerful healing tool on the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual level, Rebirthing Breathwork begins a transformation of the subconscious impression of life from one of primal pain to one of increasing pleasure. Through the use of affirmations you will learn to heighten your self-esteem, expand your awareness of Spirit, increase your self-acceptance and vitality and, replace your self-defeating programs, thus enabling you to achieve profound and lasting positive permanent life changes. With the Rebirthing Breathwork process and these techniques, any of your outdated subconscious behavior patterns and sabotage programs can be made conscious so they can be released, thus your heart will open to receive more love, your mind peace, and the concept of abundance can be made a living reality for you. Rebirthing Breathwork is releasing your resistance to life and saying Yes to your own life force.
Rebirthing Breathwork uses the breath to clear and cleanse the physical, mental, and emotional bodies, bringing about a new integration of mind, body and Spirit. It was developed by Leonard Orr in the early '70's, although it is actually a very ancient practice, related to pranayama yoga. It was originally called Rebirthing because memories from birth often surface to be healed. Besides Leonard Orr, other well-known authors in this field include Sondra Ray, Bob Mandel, Phil Laut, Jim Leonard, and Colin Sisson.

Over the past 30+ years, Rebirthing Breathwork has propagated a variety of personal growth and therapeutic processes, which are today collectively known as "Breathwork." In the initial stages, Rebirthing Breathwork is experienced through a series of 10 individual sessions with an experienced Rebirther Breathworker after which the "rebirthee" has a life-long tool for integration and healing.
(This description was taken from the Maryland Rebirthing Breathwork Center web site.)

Ariana is a distributor of Himalayan Goji Juice for Anti-Aging and all sorts of healing benefits. Check out her page at www.ariana.freelife.com/ .

To find out more about Himalayan Goji juice, or more information about the band or her healing work e-mail her at arianakiva@gmail.com.

KIVA

Using mythological stories and images, KIVA weaves a rainbow tapestry of ancient cultures and natural imagery into energizing mystical folk music for all ages.

KIVA is a percussive, acoustic, worldbeat ensemble that celebrates the magic of nature and ancient bardic traditions with music that opens the heart and heals the spirit. The band blends strong vocal harmonies with rich and diverse acoustic and electric instrumentation, performing originals, traditionals, and covers. The musicians are inspired by many cultures, spiritual disciplines, and musical styles, including celtic-folk, folk-rock, blues, big band, traditional chants, and jazz. KIVA is based in the Washington DC metro area, and has been nominated fourteen times (so far) for the Washington Area Music (Wammie) Award.

KIVA has had many members over the years, but the music and the vision have remained the same. Here are the people who currently make up KIVA:

KIVA Picture

	Ariana Lightningstorm Diana Sunday David Landis Diana McFadden Jim Brewster Tim Sauerwein Tigre Cruz	-- band leader, lead vocals, percussion, songwriter, manager -- vocals, guitar, percussion, drums -- Native American flutes, whistles, drums, vocals -- cello, mandolin, guitar -- guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, drums, flute, whistles, vocals -- didgeridoo, percussion, vocals -- drums, percussion, vocals
Satellite Members
	Amikaeyla Gaston Eve Jones Jaqui MacMillan	-- vocals, drums, percussion, songwriter (not pictured) -- drums, percussion, silver flute (not pictured) -- drums (not pictured)

Links where you learn more about Ariana and listen to her incredible music

homepage: for KIVA - http://www.kivasong.com/
homepage for Oshun Gaia – http://www.oshungaia.com/
for Ancient Mysteries- http://www.ancient-mysteries.org/
for FaceBook - http://www.facebook.com/KivaSong
for KIVALight -http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119981144708817&index=1
for Ancient Mysteries Divination page-http://www.ancient-mysteries.org/ariana.html
for Twitter – http://twitter.com/arianakiva
for Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/kivatheband
for getting KIVA’s music via download -www.cdbaby.com/Artist/KIVA1
For Anna's (Ariana's) personal page – http://www.facebook.com/Anna.Snodgrass
For Oshun Gaia's facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/OshunGaia

KIVA's Performances 2010

1/29/10 - CD Release concert (KIVA So Far – a 20 Year Adventure) at New Deal in Greenbelt, MD –

http://www.newdealcafe.com/

2/19/10 - Black Ankle Vineyards in Mt Airy, MD – KIVALight concert

http://www.blackankle.com/

4/10/10 - RenCon – KIVALight played in the afternoon. Hunt Valley Marriott, http://www.renconvention.com

4/30-5/1-2/2010 - playing on 5/1 Mountain Mysteries Beltaine

http://www.mountain-mysteries.com/

5/8/10 4:00 pm. - Greenbelt Green Man Festival –

http://www.greenbeltgreenmanfestival.org/

5/15/10 at 4:30 pm - Maryland Faerie Festival – (there’s video of our performance here - http://yenra.tv/faerie/breath-of-fire.html

and

http://yenra.tv/faerie/jaima.html

and

http://yenra.tv/faerie/showmehow.html

and

http://yenra.tv/faerie/corner.html

The MD Faerie Festival site.

http://www.marylandfaeriefestival.org/

6/19/10 - Free Spirit Gathering held June 15-20. 2010 KIVA is playing on Saturday around 8:00 pm.

http://www.freespiritgathering.org/fsg/concerts.html

6/25/10 Wisteria Summer Solstice held June 20-27 - KIVA will be playing on Friday, around 8:00 pm. We’ll also be doing a chant workshop sometime that week.

http://www.wisteria.org/wisteria-summer-solstice.htm

7/8/10 - Spirits of the Earth in Canada held 7/6-11 – KIVALight will be playing on Thursday, July 8. Ariana will be doing a chant workshop and a workshop on Palmistry.

http://www.spiritsfest.com/highlights/entertainment.htm

7/15/10 - Sirius Rising held July 12-18 – KIVA will be playing on July 15 (Thursday).

http://www.brushwood.com/sirius.html

8/14/10 - Bubes Brewery – KIVA plays at the brewery on Saturday, August 14th – in their Catacombs! Very cool! 10:00 pm doors open 10:30 music goes until 1:00 am.

http://www.bubesbrewery.com/

9/17/10 - Black Ankle Vineyards in Mt Airy, MD – KIVALight concert

http://www.blackankle.com/

KIVA's Music Recordings

The following are KIVA's albums, plus some recordings we helped to create. Click here to see an Order Form to order any of these recordings.

Here are a few recordings KIVA or KIVA members helped out on:
KIVA So Far - A 20 Year Adventure 20th Anniversary CD of new and fan requested older tunes. KIVA (Yule - 2009)	Reflections A meditative mix of old and new music. KIVA (2007)
Oshun Gaia A new Chant Album by Amikaeyla and Ariana with KIVA! (2006)	Out of the Corner of the Eye KIVA (2006)
Armageddon Calling "single" KIVA (2003)	A Call to Beauty KIVA (2002)
Live at the Forest Inn KIVA (1997)	Finding the Balance Within KIVA (1995)
Mother Wisdom KIVA (1994)	Alchemy KIVA (1992)
Renewal KIVA (1991)	The Healing Art KIVA (1990)
Songs of Mysts and Moon Amergyn & KIVA (1999)	Fairy Gifts Celtic Folk Tales as told by Morganna Davies with music by KIVA (1998)

Booking KIVA for a Performance

KIVA is based in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. On weekends we are willing to play anywhere within a 3-hour drive of Washington. Requests for further travel will be considered.

To book KIVA, email arianakiva@gmail.com

***Note from Paula Jean West, Pagan Travel Examiner: Anna Snodgrass aka Ariana Lightningstorm and I have been friends for over 20 years now, since 1990, when Kiva was just in the formational stages. Kiva is and always has been my favorite Pagan band and Anna has become a dear friend over the years. No one deserves the recognition of "The Pagan Travel Examiner's Musician of the Month" more than Ariana Lightningstorm. She has given more joy and beauty over the years to the Pagan community than anyone else I know. Join Anna and I later this week for Part Two of this series about Anna when I interview her and dig into what makes this beautiful lady of music and healing tick. And look for Part Three of this series later this month when I review Kiva's upcoming performance at the Wisteria Summer Solstice Festival , June 20-27, 2010, which I have the opportunity to attend and cover this year. Happy June! Happy Summer Solstice! Happy Litha!!