Should you choose to be moon, your heavenly glow of face will draw a world of attention. Some will fall in Love with you. Some will howl their great displeasure, for we live in a world of lesser lights, where eyes have grown comfortable with the mediocrity of dimness.
Should you choose to be moon, the brightness of your face will startle those who stumble in the dark. Your light will take getting used to. Even as you offer a clearer vision, many will want to remain in caves, content to gnaw on bones left over from the cannibalizing of souls.
They will snarl at your conspicuous aura, and each will pick up stones to cast at you. They will find their own reasons to slay you, achieving expertise at finding cause, devoting all their energy to knocking your promissory lantern from the sky.
Their limbs will grow fatigued, then bloodied, then fall off. This will not stop them. They will pick up stones with their jagged teeth and spit them at you. They will kick their legs off trying to catapult rocks up against your lamp of illuminated witness.
When they exhaust themselves, they will curse you who brings the light, even as they cough into fits of breathlessness. Astonishingly, many of these howling souls may be your own family and friends. Though they Love you, they are bewildered by your light. You may feel betrayed and stung, but do not fret this hard stone in your burlap bag of destiny. They have their own moon to reach, and be. For you, that chance is now. Be the moon, that dissuaded gem of light.
Should you choose to be moon, know that you will inspire a world’s vast and conflicted response. The moment will be an aperture for revelation. Look through that foreboding cleavage into the radiance and see what is true:
As moon, those who cast against you can never reach you. The distance is too far. Only those who fall in Love into your light can reach you. And this is why moon shines steady and unaffected through the night.
Jaiya John. Lyric of Silence: A Poetic Telling of the Human Soul Journey .
JAIYA JOHN'S
The Gathering.
A World Tour.
a poetry reading ceremony
and book collection signing
a production of
Soul Water Rising & The Heart Dept
Dates TBA.
We begin February 2, 2024 in Los Angeles.
I am excited to join you in your community to read from my collection of published and unpublished work, bringing to life the spirit of the medicine words.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 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. Before the afterparty, and after the reading, we care for each other as I make myself available for sacred listening, tears and laughter, sacred embraces, selfies, and book collection signing.
And 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 living rooms, cafés, libraries, prisons, hospitals, shelters, community centers, women's centers, campuses, HBCU's, Indigenous reservations, art galleries, art studios, museums, parks, amphitheaters, auditoriums, theaters, and stadiums. Call us to North and West Africa, the Levantine, Southeast Asia, South and Central America, the Caribbean, and beyond. We go where we are called.
You play an organic role in this. If you desire for the tour to come your way, reach out to our Tour Producer & Creative Director, Artist Shelley Bruce. You can help us identify aligned venues, communities, and audiences. Email us at thegatheringtour2024@gmail.com.
This project is a collaborative production of Soul Water Rising and The Heart Dept.
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 are very excited to share that the first gathering of our tour will be at:
The Luna Vortex
on Friday, Feb 2nd from
6:30pm-10pm
in Echo Park, Los Angeles.
Capacity is limited. Tickets may sell out this weekend. More information and ticket link at thelunavortex.com.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jaiya-john-the-gathering-tour-tickets-810022046747?aff=oddtdtcreator
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.
🌕✨️
This is so timely for my soul journey right now. These words are medicine.
I feel this. As I grow in luminosity I feel that I am activating people in various ways. Those (few) who TRULY love me are celebrating this new version. Others are curious and still others are turning away. Thank you for sharing this piece at this time. Hoping your tour will come to Arizona✨