Master Herbalist, holistic nutritionist, wellness strategist, and founder of the oldest African American School of Herbalism in the United States. Iya Sobande has spent more than three decades building institutional homes for African diasporic herbal medicine — schools, retreats, conferences, and lineages of teaching that carry the wisdom of her fore-mothers into every room she enters.
At the Jambalaya Center she serves as Oludari of Egbe Osain and Oludari of Emissaries & Sacred Partnerships, holding the herbal apothecary, welcoming inquiries into service, and stewarding the Center's relationships with kindred organizations.
Iya Sobande carries a priesthood in the Yoruba tradition serving both Shango — the Òrìṣà of fire, thunder, justice, and sovereign power — and Osain, the great herbalist of the forest and Òrìṣà of medicine, whose knowledge of the leaves is the foundation of Yoruba ethnobotany.
Her deepest teacher was her great-grandmother, a Southern granny-medicine healer whose knowledge of the plants moved through her hands and her kitchen. That inherited wisdom — the direct transmission from elder to child, the wisdom that lives in the pot on the stove and the garden out back — is the root system of everything Iya Sobande has built since.
In 1992, Iya Sobande founded Natural Choices Botanica of Traditional Healing — first as an herb catalog, then as a retail store. When a tornado devastated the store in 1999, she reshaped the vision into what became the NCB School of Herbalism & Holistic Health: the oldest African American School of Herbalism in the United States. The founder's living room and backyard became the hub for retreats and holistic studies; her kitchen became an herbal apothecary.
She is a Master Herbalist with over three decades in the field, a Certified Holistic Nutritionist and Natural Health Professional trained through the Trinity School of Natural Health and the International Board of African Thinkers & Healers Inc. She holds undergraduate degrees in communications, public relations, and health & nutrition, and is completing her Doctor of Naturopathy.
Iya Sobande is the visionary founder of Sacred Waters Retreat, a beloved herbal retreat for women of color, and of the Afro Botany Immersion Conference held annually in Costa Rica. She is the co-founder of Cook, Cure & Conjure, an online wellness series developed alongside Chief Iyanifa Yeye Luisah Teish that weaves African diasporic culinary tradition, plant medicine, and ceremonial practice into a single arc of learning.
She currently serves as Program Director for Earthwise Spirituality & Education, founded by Priestess Stephanie Rose Bird, and teaches with Ecoversity alongside herbalists including Rosemary Gladstar. She has written for herbal publications for more than thirty years and is widely recognized as a leader and trailblazer in the field of African American herbal history.
Iya Sobande is a Desert Storm veteran of the U.S. Army who returned from military service to the ways of her fore-mothers — a path she has since made walkable for the generations coming behind her.
At the Jambalaya Center of Ancient Mysteries & Sacred Arts, Iya Sobande sits on the Igbimo Ijinle — the Inner Council that stewards the sacred and institutional life of the Center alongside Chief Iyanifa Yeye Luisah Teish, Shylah Hamilton-Touré, and Jamie "Raven" McGill.
She serves as Oludari of Egbe Osain, holding the Ile's herbal apothecary and heading the stewarding of the medicinal work of the land — the garden buildout, the plant seedlings, the preparation vessels, the training of those called to the healing traditions. She also serves as Oludari of Emissaries and Sacred Partnerships, receiving volunteer inquiries in conversation with Shylah, and stewarding the relationships between the Center and its kindred organizations.
Iya Sobande was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, where her great-grandmother gave her a first glimpse into the traditional African herbalism carried by Southern granny-medicine healers. She served in the U.S. Army during Desert Storm, and returned home to the plants.
For thirty years she lived at Sage Mountain, the herbal retreat center and botanical sanctuary founded by Rosemary Gladstar in Vermont. She has since moved to a smaller haven in Tennessee, where she tends new gardens, writes, and spends more time with the plants that first called her home.
"When we ingest plants, we ingest the nutrients of our ancestors."
— Iya Sobande Greer
Iya Sobande's work lives across multiple institutional homes. Her school, retreat, and immersion conference each have their own doors into the plant work she carries.
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