Joyfulness, a poem

July 2 virtual gathering, July 13 writing workshop, Sept. 7-8 Barcelona tour stop, Sept. 25-26 Washington, D.C. tour stop

Joyfulness

If you are joyful at night, take joy to sleep with you. If you are joyful in the morning, take it to work with you. Take joy into your Love making, your laughter, your tears. Bring joy along for your whole life. Joy is a swelling of the heart, flushing of the soul. It softens your hardness for your river song of moments. It’s how you get through the tight spaces like water doing yoga poses. It’s the dew on your passion roses. Make joy offerings with every breath.

The joy you want is doing a miraculous thing. It has been waiting patiently inside you all your life. It believes in you. When you are ready, it will bloom.

Breathe with your life, not just your lungs. Smile with your Love, not just your face. If you do a thing joyfully, it means your heart and soul are open. More life rushes in. Be a better banker. Bring in more life than you are giving away. In fleeting moments with others, open into joy. Not just your joy. Joy itself. Your moments will be a riper fruit.

If joy is a drought in your heart, create rain. Summon a mad preacher raised in a carnival to keep you properly aloft in delirium's sky. Don't keep looking for almond peddlers. Grow an almond tree. Watching a squirrel is fun. Climbing a tree is more fun. You don't always have to rhyme this life. Rhythm is the thing.

Happiness is a happening. That's why it's called happiness. It is an act. A vibrant, intentional unfolding. Like an orchid petal from its tuck. Or your heart dilating into joy. A conspiracy of sunlight. A choice to remember beauty, to harvest its bounty. Happiness is not a state. Not an accidental outcome. It is a happening. Decipher your soul and story. Make happiness happen.

If you are going to feed yourself, hydrate yourself, and rest yourself, why not bliss yourself. To stay in the energy of bliss, apply bliss. Intentionally breathe, think, feel, remember, and cherish bliss. Blissfulness does not occur by accident. It is an accumulation. Bliss you.

It is good not to interrupt your own joy. Let it have you as long as it wants you. Joy cannot be purchased. It is a living thing. It must be gardened. Watered. Whispered to. Open your soul window. Feel the inner breeze. Don’t stop crying joy. Be the loudest one laughing. Laughter is not just medicine. It is a smoke signal that says to hope, Come stay with me. Congratulate your joy. It has worked remarkably hard to stay wild in you.

Fall in Love with your own joy and movement. You are not an inert object. You are a phenomenon of freedom. In the bright decadence of your joy, your soul prays you will remember this feeling and bring it with you everywhere you go. For a beautiful life, look upon others as you do all natural wonders. Don’t tighten and close. Open and awe. Be a soft meadow. Beauty will arrive.

Humanity is suffering for many reasons. One is that in our always accelerating inner and outer condition, we have abandoned the realm of miracle. Life is a menagerie of subtle and sensational miracles. To be truly immersed in miracle, to see, feel, and be moved by miracle, requires stillness, presence, intention, and attention. All of which we lose by rushing anxiously through moments that could have offered us their miracles. Instead, we experience the madness of chronic malaise. You and I are designed to live in a condition of miraculousness. Of divine, purposeful, interwoven wonder. If we are going to heal our devastating, destructive impulses, we must remember our miracle nature and the miracle nature all around us. We have long been vagrant. It is time to come home to our holy design.

- Jaiya John

Daughter Drink This Water:
A Book of Sacred Love



UPCOMING EVENT DATES:

• JULY 2. 10AM PDT. The Gathering World Tour virtual poetry / book reading ceremony. Donation based. (GET YOUR TICKETS NOW)

• JULY 13. 9AM PDT. Wild Blackberry Creative Writing Playshop guided by Dr. Jaiya John. (GET YOUR TICKETS NOW)

• SEPT. 7-8. BARCELONA, SPAIN. The Gathering World Tour poetry / book reading ceremony. Tickets available shortly.

• SEPT. 25-26. WASHINGTON, D.C., HOWARD UNIVERSITY. The Gathering World Tour poetry / book reading ceremony. International Black Writers Festival. Tickets available shortly.

JAIYA JOHN'S
THE GATHERING.
A WORLD TOUR.

a poetry reading ceremony and
book collection sale and signing

I am excited to join you in person this year in your community to read from my collection of 19 books and unpublished work, bringing to life the spirit of the medicine words. I say reading, though incantation and prayer are truer. Thematically, these readings are on collective freedom, and take on the flavor of each audience from gathering to gathering. A rich weaving of cultural fabric. These gatherings center Indigenous, marginalized, dehumanized people and communities, and are remembrance songs, bringing us back to our Indigenous ancestral ways of gathering and being together. As this tour is part of my global Soul Water Rising rehumanizing mission, we stir the soul to remember itself as we garden our collective liberation and the end of oppressive systems and ways of life.

I am also honored to include, at some of the gatherings, live Sacred Conversations with revolutionary souls who inspire me. During these gatherings, I also commune with the audience in questions and conversation. And we build into this healing experience what we are calling Aftercare. After the reading, we care for each other as I make myself available for sacred listening and embraces, tears and laughter, photos, and book collection purchasing and signing.

As a part of Soul Water Rising's Book Angel Project, whether or not you attend a particular gathering, you have the opportunity to purchase books that we then gift to vulnerable souls with whom we gather along the tour.

The Gathering is a people's freedom movement. The tour is happening in cafés, bookstores, libraries, prisons, hospitals, shelters, community centers, women's centers, college campuses, HBCU's, Indigenous reservations, art galleries, art studios, museums, parks, amphitheaters, auditoriums, theaters, festivals, and stadiums. Call out to us. We go where we are called.

You can play an organic role in this. If you desire for the tour to come your way, email me through our tour page at jaiyajohn.com. You or someone you know may be able to help identify aligned venues, communities, and audiences.

Tour dates and locations are announced on a rolling calendar as sites are secured. This tour is a culmination, crystallizing, and new season of my life's journey, work, and calling. I am awed and enchanted to read for you and embrace you in a healing way.

We will see each other soon, in Love, at The Gathering.

Big Love,
Jaiya                                      

🌕✨️✨️✨️

My books are available at booksellers worldwide and directly from the author at jaiyajohn.com (eBooks are exclusively at my site). Thank you for posting your copies, readings, and creative images and videos, and for sharing online reviews. It all breathes life into a book's life. I hope you will gift these books to your people.

Also at jaiyajohn.com, enjoy my books, eBooks, audiobooks, talks, sleep stories, and piano music. I also offer creative writing support phone sessions, keynote speaking, talks, and book/poetry readings.

🌕✨️