Dr. Jaiya John was orphan-born on Ancient Puebloan lands in the high desert of New Mexico, and is an internationally recognized freedom worker, author, and poet. Jaiya is the founder of Soul Water Rising, a global rehumanizing mission to eradicate oppression. Soul Water has donated thousands of Jaiya's books in support of social healing and offers grants to displaced and vulnerable youth. He is the author of numerous books, including Fragrance After Rain, Daughter Drink This Water, and Freedom: Medicine Words for your Brave Revolution. Jaiya writes, narrates, and produces the podcast, I Will Read for You: The Voice and Writings of Jaiya John, and is the founder of Sacred Word, a global initiative reviving traditional, ancestral gathering and storytelling practices to fertilize social healing and liberation. He is a former professor of social psychology at Howard University and has spoken to over a million people worldwide and audiences as large as several thousand. Jaiya is a former National Science Foundation fellow and holds doctorate and master's degrees in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on intergroup and race relations. As an undergraduate, he attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he studied Tibetan Holistic Medicine through independent research with Tibetan doctors and trekked to the base camp of Mt. Everest. His Indigenous soul dreams of frybread, sweetgrass, bamboo in the breeze, and turtle lakes whose poetry is peace.
