09/16/2026
‘Come JINE Me! Come Stand on Sacred Ground’, Ya’ll.🙏🏽
JOURNEY OF THE HEART
OCTOBER 11–16, 2026
Standing On
Sacred Ground
Traveling with the stories of our past
to seek a better path for a shared humanity
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA → MONTGOMERY & SELMA, ALABAMA
10 PARTICIPANTS · 3 FACILITATORS · 6 TRANSFORMATIVE DAYS
In March of 1859, on a rain-soaked racetrack outside Savannah, more than four hundred enslaved men, women, and children were sold over two days in the largest slave auction in American history. The sky wept for the duration. The people called it the Weeping Time.
Archival evidence tells us that many of those auctioned at the Weeping Time were carried from the Sea Islands of Georgia to cotton plantations in Alabama — torn from everything and everyone they had ever known. This journey is, in part, an act of recovery — and an act of witness.
“This is not a tour. It is a Journey of the Heart.”
Over six days, ten travelers and three facilitators will follow that path together — from the moss-draped squares of Savannah to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, from the horror of Andersonville to the luminous reckoning of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. We will walk ground that has held grief, and ground that has held courage, and we will try to understand both.
Because history this heavy cannot be carried alone, we will gather each morning and evening in a Circle of Trust® — a space of deep listening, honest reflection, and communal meaning-making. We will rest when we need to rest. We will weep when we need to weep. And we will discover, together, what we are called to carry home.
Space is limited to ten participants. Come walk with us.
WHAT SETS THIS JOURNEY APART
Five Things Unique To This Journey
Engaging With Personal Stories
We don't survey history from a distance. We engage with the personal stories of those divided from their families at the Weeping Time and sent to places they did not know — sitting with their grief, honoring their resilience, and restoring the humanity the auction tried to erase.
Local Voices, Living Inheritance
In Savannah, Selma, and Montgomery, we are guided by the historians, storytellers, and elders who hold these stories as living inheritance — including Sistah Patt Gunn, the Saltwata Players, the Foot Soldiers Foundation Guides, and Miss Wanda Battle.
All Four EJI Legacy Sites
We experience the full arc of the Equal Justice Initiative’s legacy in Montgomery — the Legacy Museum, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and more — an immersion few journeys offer.
The Circle of Trust®
Morning and evening, we gather in circle to listen deeply, speak honestly, and tend to one another. Built-in self-care time honors the truth that this history is heavy — and that healing requires rest as well as witness.
History as Healing
This journey understands history not as a wound to be endured , but as a path toward wholeness. Through an intentional focus on self-care practices, a group intimate enough that every voice is known, we create the conditions that invite healing. Here, bearing witness to the past and tending to ourselves in the present are not separate acts. They are one.
THE JOURNEY, DAY BY DAY
Six Days. One Unbroken Thread.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 · ARRIVAL · SAVANNAH: Where the Story Begins
We gather in Savannah, the city where our story begins. After settling into the Hotel Indigo in Savannah’s Historic District, we open the retreat in a Welcome Circle, setting our intentions for the week ahead. Master Gullah Geechee truth-Teller Sistah Patt Gunn then leads us on a walking tour of the Historic River Port — the very ground where the enslaved were brought from ships to holding pens before being marched to auction. We return to the hotel for a catered dinner and Evening Circle before we retire for the night. Retreat begins at 4:00 pm.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12 · The Weeping Time
After breakfast and Morning Circle, we journey to the site of the Weeping Time Auction, where we begin to recover the personal stories of those who were divided from their families and sent to places they did not know — souls among the 436 sold whose humanity the auction tried to erase. We then tour the significant squares and sites that frame the history of Savannah. In the late afternoon we return to the hotel for an hour of personal time — for self-care, journaling, or walking the City Market Place. In the evening, after dinner and Evening Circle, the Saltwata Players bring Gullah Geechee history to life through performance — testimony to a culture that endured, and endures still.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13 · ANDERSONVILLE: The Cost of Freedom
We depart Savannah and travel to the Andersonville National Historic Site, where we pause to honor those who fought and suffered in the struggle to end slavery. Walking the grounds of the Civil War’s most infamous prison camp, we reflect on the price of freedom and the courage of those who paid it. By evening we arrive in Montgomery — the city where the person we follow was carried, and the city where, a century later, a movement was born. We check into the Embassy Suites, take a self-care hour, and gather for dinner and Evening Circle.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14 · SELMA: Marching Toward Justice
Today we travel fifty-four miles to Selma, guided by local historians who lived this history and have courageously carried it forward. We will walk where the foot soldiers of the voting rights movement walked, cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and share lunch in the Selma community at All In One. We return to Montgomery in the afternoon for self-care, dinner, and Evening Circle, holding the day’s witness together.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15 · MONTGOMERY: Legacy & Light
A full day immersed in the work of the Equal Justice Initiative and the living history of Montgomery. We begin at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, where art and ancestry meet on the banks of the Alabama River, then spend the late morning in the Legacy Museum, tracing the unbroken line from enslavement to mass incarceration. After lunch at the beloved Pannie-George’s Kitchen, local historian Miss Wanda Battle leads us on a bus tour through Montgomery’s sacred civil rights landscape — introducing us to the many historic places that shaped a movement: the Brick A Day Church, the King–Scott Parsonage, Dexter Avenue Church, and the State Capitol. We stop to tour the newest EJI site, Montgomery Square, and continue to the Holt Street Church, Rosa Parks’ Apartment, and the Civil Rights Memorial.
Friday, October 16 · Closing DAY · Bearing Witness, Carrying It Home
On our final morning, we visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice — the lynching memorial — where more than four thousand names call us to remember. It is the culmination of our Journey of the Heart: the place where memory becomes reckoning, and reckoning opens the door to healing. We return to the hotel for our Closing Circle, gathering one last time to honor what we have witnessed, what we have felt, and what we now carry home. We depart Montgomery at 12:00 pm — changed.
YOUR GUIDES ON THIS JOURNEY
The Facilitator Team
Lori Ann Yadin
EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATOR · LEADERSHIP COACH · WRITER · PUBLISHED AUTHOR
INDEPENDENT COURAGE & RENEWAL FACILITATOR · TRAINED BY PARKER J. PALMER · ELDERGARTEN FELLOW
Lori brings decades of lived and generational experience to the design of meaningful journeys. Her work in community formation, indigenous knowledge, and the intersection of past and present shapes a retreat experience rooted in the conviction that our shared humanity is both the wound and the way forward. Writing as Lori Ann, she is the published author of three books — her newest, Rooted In Humanity: Reclaiming Benevolence In Support of a Community’s Coming of Age, speaks directly to the heart of this journey. In recent years Lori has held the idea and value of living into Elder-Leadership, inspired by the book, The ElderGarten – A Field Guide For the Journey of a Lifetime by her mentor and friend, Dr. Sally Z. Hare.
Dave Ellis
COMMUNITY CONSULTANT · TRAUMA EDUCATOR
ART OF HOSTING & WORLDVIEW MASTER TRAINER · BUSH FOUNDATION FELLOW · CREATOR, FIVE-FOLD PATH TO HEALING™
Dave brings rare expertise in trauma in the African American community, grounded in decades of work at the intersection of healing, worldview, and collective transformation. His Five Fold Path to Healing™ offers a framework for moving through grief and into agency.
Sistah Patt Gunn
MASTER GULLAH GEECHEE TRUTH-TELLER · OWNER, UNDERGROUND TOURS OF SAVANNAH
HISTORIAN · CO-FOUNDER, SUSIE KING TAYLOR CENTER FOR JUBILEE
Sistah Patt is a keeper of sacred stories. As a master Gullah Geechee Truth-Teller and founder of Savannah’s celebrated Underground Tours, she holds the living memory of the people whose ground we walk. Her voice opens what guidebooks cannot reach.
RETREAT TUITION
Shared Occupancy (per person, double room) $2,350
Single Occupancy (private room) $2,900
TUITION INCLUDES
— All lodging (Savannah & Montgomery)
— All meals throughout the retreat – Beginning with Sunday, Dinner thru Friday Breakfast.
— All transportation during the journey
— Museum and site admission fees
— All guided tours and performances
— Professional facilitation
— Retreat journal
— Poems, readings, and resources
— Group Welcome Zoom before the journey
— Group Harvesting Zoom following the journey
Kindly Note: Individual travel to Savannah (arrival city) and from Montgomery (departure city) is not included in tuition and is arranged independently by each participant.
JOURNEY DATES
Sunday, October 11 at 4:00 pm — Friday, October 16 at 12:00 pm, 2026
We kindly request that you make your travel arrangements so that you can be with us at the beginning of this retreat, and that you stay with us through the end. The Savannah Airport is just a short 20 minute UBER/LYFT ride to the Hotel Indigo in Savannah. And, the Montgomery, AL Airport is jus a 20 minute ride from the Embassy Suites Hotel.
Ten Seats.
One History.
Come Walk With Us.
This retreat is limited to ten participants. Space is intimate by design as we are committed to creating an environment of safe “enough” space to build the relational trust that this journey asks for. Healing in community happens when honest reflection is shared, souls connect, hands are held, stories are heard, and hearts are seen. This space is created to be worthy of our shared humanity.
We begin this Journey holding love for our shared humanity…
“Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust, “ wrote bell hooks, (1952-2021), a pioneering American author, philosopher and social critic, publishing over 40 books that bridged academia and everyday life. We will carry her wisdom with us on this journey, Standing On Sacred Ground.
Standing On Sacred Ground – A Journey of The Heart – Circle of Trust ® Retreat
Sunday, October 11 – Friday, October 16, 202
Patt Gunn👒📚🎤
CEO- UNDERGROUND TOURS OF SAVANNAH
