About Ariana Lightningstorm of KIVA

Ariana

Ariana has been the lead singer, songwriter, and manager of KIVA since she started the band in 1989. She grew up in a musical family that includes her mother, Frances Fox, a retired band director and the first female trombonist to graduate Eastman School of Music (with honors) and a famous operatic aunt (Barbara Fox DeMaio). 

She has taken her classical training in music into the creative realm of mythology and spiritual traditions from around the world. She was nominated for the DC Wammie! (Washington Area Music Award) in 1996 and 1998 as “Best New Age Female Vocalist.” 

Ariana is also one of only 9 Certified Lipsologists and one of 2 Certified Lipsology teachers in the world (Lipsology is the art and science of reading lip prints), a practitioner of palmistry, tarot reading, and handwriting analysis.  She has owned and run a booth at the Maryland Renaissance Festival for 40 years called Ancient Mysteries Divination.

  • To purchase KIVA’s recordings, see their upcoming schedule, and learn more about the band, visit KIVA’s website
  • Follow KIVA on FaceBook
  • Learn more about Ariana’s work with Ancient Mysteries Divination on its webpage and FaceBook Page
  • Visit Ariana’s Lipsology® page to learn more about this fascinating form of divination

Ariana’s blog posts

Autumn’s Twilight

I wrote Autumn’s Twilight originally on October 29, 1995. It was published on KIVA’s album Out of the Corner of the Eye in 2006. The inspiration for the song was a beautiful maple tree in my back yard when I lived in Kensington, Maryland in the 1990s. I used to...
snowdrops in spring

Spring is Returning!

Out here in Maryland where I live, Spring has definitely returned, with the red buds bursting forth from the twigs and branches of the tree in my front yard that I can see from my home office window.  As I drove from Maryland to Virginia, where I currently do palm...

Winter Solstice Sunrise and Yuletide Changes

Winter Solstice Sunrise is the first chant that I ever wrote before I wrote any songs.  Sometime in 1981 (I was 19 or 20 years old) I started realizing that I could write music and not just reproduce it (I had been singing and playing music since I was a...
people at pagan bonfire

High Summer Reigns!

The first three words of the song that I wrote called High Summer comes from a poem a friend of mine wrote years ago.  “High summer reigns” and then her poem continues.  The poem inspired me to write about my own experience of summer and the festivals that I attended...

Jnana Mai: Song of Mother Wisdom

This is the story of a poem and song that started with a heartbeatcoming out of a bathtub. It’s about being awake to magic and the messages of the Goddess. It’s about the song Jnana Mai, which translates as “mother wisdom”. Tom’s mystical experience In 1994, my friend, Tom Wolfe...