Jnana Mai: Song of Mother Wisdom

This is the story of a poem and song that started with a heartbeat…coming 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, master herbalist, fan of my band, KIVA, and all around wonderful person, traveled to an herbalist conference in New Mexico.  When he came back he reached out to me to tell me of his experience. 

One evening early in the herbal conference, another conference attendee asked Tom to use the phone in his room to call the main office to change rooms, and Tom heard him telling the staff that there was a heartbeat coming out of his bathtub.  Tom, being Tom, asked if he could go investigate and the fellow was happy to oblige. 

Tom discovered that, indeed, there was a heartbeat coming out of the bathtub in that room. There was a very evocative Goddess statue nearby that he brought into the space, because of the strong feeling he had about the connection between the heartbeat and the statue.  From the tradition that he had been practicing, he made an Agnihotra offering – setting fire to a small pile of herbs. The flames from this little bit of herbs/oil grew way beyond expectation (he likened it to the “burning bush”). 

He meditated in the space and had a profound experience where he met the Divine Mother.  He said it was like “Uncle Remus from Song of the South – Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” where he was in the spirit of the beauty of the natural world and was immersed in the divine feminine.  It was a revelatory experience for him as he had previously only connected with Meher Baba (another interesting story). In his tradition the use of statues and such in worship are frowned upon, so Tom had not had any previous powerful experiences regarding statues, either. He asked me to help him to understand the experience and wanted to share his experience with one of the only Goddess worshipers he knew. 

While in this state of bliss he wrote a poem called Jnana Mai (pronounced Yana My).  He read it to me and I immediately heard the heartbeat drum and the melody in my head.  I asked him if he would be okay with me putting his poem to music and he was happy to do so. 

Later he told me that he thought… what if it isn’t good??? After hearing it, he was happy to report that he loved it. Here are the words:

This is my song. I come singing to Jnana Mai.
To She who makes the fields of green.
She I have heard. She I have seen.
Jnana Mai, Jnana Mai…

She makes the waters fall from the sky, Jnana Mai,
As tears fall from the suffering eye.
She I have heard. She I have seen.
Jnana Mai, Jnana Mai…

She is worthy of praise.
She who holds the healing herb.
She I have heard. She I have seen..
Jnana Mai, Jnana Mai…

Walking I come with herbs burning for her.
She is Mother to All.
Son or Daughter. Son or Daughter.
Jnana Mai, Jnana Mai…

from Jnana Mai, Lyrics by Tom Wolfe, Music by Ariana Lightningstorm © 1994

The poem becomes a song

I went home and used a borrowed 4 track tape recorder to put the song into form.  I did it in one try for each track.  The song sang itself.  The original recording of this song was done for KIVA’s album Mother Wisdom. In a sense it was the title track, because Jnana Mai means “mother wisdom”.  It was the song that had me deciding to create that album of chants which has since traveled all over the world. 

The version of the song that is in this article came to be recorded when Amikaeyla Gaston and I got together to create a 2nd chant album called Oshun Gaia. Members of KIVA helped to record this song and many others on Oshun Gaia.  KIVA had been performing Jnana Mai for years with more instruments and expanded vocals so having Amikaeyla Gaston’s beautiful and velvety voice on the song was the “icing on the cake” of this beautiful poem turned song.

Recording chants is an amazing experience in the studio.  When we recorded songs for Oshun Gaia, we had an altar with incense and candles going in the larger room and recorded in sacred space.  We also did this for Mother Wisdom.  When possible for our group chants we stood in a circle around the microphone and did our call and response chants with multiple harmonies and created a wonderful choral effect on several chants.

More recently, with permission and support from Tom, I put the song to a set of photos either taken by myself or Tom, or purchased on one of the websites where photographers and artists sell their art to be used in many ways including what I call a “picture video.”  I chose pictures that evoked the images in the music and put them together in iMovie and sent them up to our YouTube channel. That’s the video included earlier in this post.

A song for earth magic

If you wish to invoke the wisdom of nature and plants, Jnana Mai is a good chant.  If you want to invite more potency to your plants while they grow or ask for the wisdom and consciousness of plants to communicate with you, this chant can help you to open to this pathway.

For more information about Ariana, including her collected articles here on Pagan Song, her bio, and links to KIVA’s and Ariana’s sites on the web, check out Ariana’s page on Pagan Song.

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