September 27, 2026 10am-5pm
Grief and Gratitude 2026
200 Britton Drive ,Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Join meditation teacher Joanna John for the second annual Grief and Gratitude meditation retreat.
The autumn equinox is an auspicious time to gather to reflect on how we relate to grief as an essential part of the human experience.
Through our coming together, we’ll be reminded of our shared humanity — that our ability to grieve is directly connected to our capacity to love. Grief and gratitude are not opposites, but deeply intertwined.
This retreat will be guided by the Insight Meditation tradition and Francis Weller’s book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow. In his book, Weller offers a framework for understanding grief through The Five Gates. By naming these gates, we are better able to access our own grief and come to see that our sorrow, while unique in some way, is not a solitary experience — it is The Grief. It is what it is to be a human.
Weller reminds us that our grief needs ritualistic space — a containment field. We need both containment and release. When we grieve in isolation, we are attempting both alone, and it simply doesn’t work.
This retreat is a step toward reclaiming the sacred act of grieving.
Through mindfulness meditation, ritual, Weller’s framework, and community, participants will be offered an anchor, and a return to the perspective of our core self, as we navigate the joys and sorrows of this miraculous life.
This meditation retreat will include:
Guided meditations
Rituals
Signature herbal tea
Yin Yoga from Saskia Meckman
A catered lunch
Small and large group discussions
Periods of time for painting, journaling, or walking meditation
*To honor and preserve the introspective nature of this day, the majority of the retreat will be held in silence, with intentional openings for small and large group sharing.
**This event will be capped at 25 participants.
Your Guides
Joanna John (she/her), Durham, NC
Joanna completed mindfulness meditation teacher training in 2023 through the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP), a two-year training founded by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. She then pursued an additional year of study with Stan Eisenstein and Cynthia Wilcox, PhD, in Guided Embodied Inquiry for Individuals (GEII).
GEII is a one-on-one modality that supports psychological and spiritual healing through mindfulness meditation, drawing on complementary frameworks including Internal Family Systems, Buddhist philosophy, spiritual reparenting, and somatic approaches to emotional processing.
Joanna continues her study of GEII with Stan and a dedicated community of meditation teachers.
Joanna facilitates seasonal meditation retreats in the Triangle area and leads ongoing cyclical sanghas (meditation communities in the Buddhist tradition). As both a teacher and fellow practitioner, she is committed to her own continued growth and engages in ongoing professional development and personal practice. She regularly makes space for contemplative practice and writing, which are central to her life and work. Joanna practices engaged spirituality, a term inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh, which refers to the active engagement of the heart and mindful awareness in service of the greater collective good.
Joanna is from Durham, North Carolina, where she currently lives with her husband, two sons, and their black lab mix, Tallulah. Outside of her teaching work, she is a homeschooling mother. Motherhood deeply informs and challenges her understanding of care, attunement, and compassionate presence.
Saskia Meckman (she/her), Hillsborough, NC
Saskia has been a Registered Yoga Teacher, since 2003. She was first introduced to yoga in 1994, on a whim, thanks to her brother. Over the years, she has studied, received certifications, and attended workshops and conferences with a wide variety of yoga instructors, influencing both her life and her teachings. Saskia holds certifications in Kripalu Yoga, Prenatal Yoga, Radiant Child Yoga, Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) Yoga, and Yin Yoga. Over the years, she has studied meditation and mindfulness, weaving these practices into her Mindful Yin Yoga class.
Born in the US to an Ecuadorean mother and a Dutch/Austrian/Danish father, Saskia grew up in Europe from the age of 5 years old. She attended school, learning the languages and experiencing first-hand the cultures in France, Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands for the following 14 years until she returned to the US for college.
Saskia has spent the past 25 years training and coaching global executives and their families relocating internationally, assisting them in creating smooth transitions – taking yoga off the mat and into daily life. She holds a BS from Tufts University, MA in Child Psychology and Education with a minor in Dance and a Masters in Intercultural and International Management with a focus on HR and Training from School for International Training (SIT), VT. She now uses all these experiences to coach women going through all transitions in life.
Tentative Retreat Flow
10:00–11:15— Welcome, logistics, grounding meditation, check-in
11:15-11:50— Dharma Talk/Grief Framework and Grief Ritual
11:50-12:05— Break
12:05-12:35— Guided Meditation
12:35-12:45 – Question + Response
12:45-2:15— Catered Lunch + Rest (art, journal prompts, walking meditation, independent time)
2:15-2:45— Guided Meditation
2:45-3:15 — Discussion
3:15-3:30 — Break
3:30-4:30 —Yin Yoga
4:30–5:00 — Closing activities
Grief and Gratitude Meditation Retreat 2025
“My grief and my gratitude, my impermanence and my timelessness, dance side by side like good friends who would be incomplete without the other. They create the raw and miraculous truth of what it means to be a human.” - Joanna John
