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@beceremonial

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Reimagining rituals ~ from birth to death
✨App: Design your own rituals
✨Learn: Virtual Workshops
✨Book: Ritual Without Religion
💫 @seekingceremony

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Wintering ❄️
~ A New Year Retreat for Rest, Reflection & Renewal

January 15–17, 2027 · Xenia Retreat Centre, Bowen Island

I get to return to Xenia. 🤍

Over the years, I’ve held some of my most beautiful retreats on this land, and coming back feels like a true homecoming to a place steeped in ceremony.

This January, instead of rushing into the new year with big visions, we’re going to winter. For one weekend we’ll go deeper into the season itself, into the themes, symbols and metaphors winter holds, and let them invite us to slow down.

Together we’ll:

❄️ Practise radical rest
❄️ Reflect on the year gone by
❄️ Take an optional wild ocean swim, followed by a warm sauna
❄️ Move through a Kundalini yoga class
❄️ Connect with ourselves, with each other, and with the land that holds us

The wonderful @paprikamarika will be cooking for us all weekend, nourishing us with delicious vegetarian food made from local ingredients. 🌿

The intuitive @kimlockhartphotography will be with us too, capturing you as you step into this new year. Each participant will be gifted a portrait. 📷

On our final day, we’ll each invite one word to guide us into the year ahead. It becomes something to hold onto, a quiet compass that steers you toward what you truly need, carrying the memory and belonging of a weekend spent with women drawn to winter’s energy.

Spaces are limited and filling quickly.

Link in bio to register, or send me a message with any questions.

#Wintering #BeCeremonial #BowenIsland #WinterRetreat #WomensRetreat

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Join Megan Sheldon, co-founder of @beceremonial, for this unique opportunity to consider the role of ritual and ceremony at the end of life.

During this 3-hour interactive workshop, Megan will introduce you to the essential elements of ceremony and ritual design. She will also explore the visible and invisible moments that surround the end of life, and the many opportunities to weave ceremony into those moments.

Together you will learn how to craft and convene an end-of-life ceremony, while also considering your own relationship with grief and loss rituals.

Register through the link in our bio to join!

#HumanistCelebrant #Ceremony

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I really enjoyed the first session of @beceremonial 's online Ceremonial Training series! Lots of thoughtful insights and teachings pulled from Megan Sheldon's experience and expertise, and a nice set of students around the world to learn with and help explore the series' concepts. Highly recommend for anyone interested in developing rituals and ceremonies in not just their own lives, but the lives of others.

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✨ Rituals to open and close a space ✨

Last night, my dad and I were at @missionhillwinery for our annual father-daughter road trip. We were there to see one of their summer concert nights with @burtoncummings 🎸

Before the music started, they rang the tower bells for several minutes. A cacophony of sound that made people smile and look up ~ and underneath the joy of it all was a signal: something is about to begin.

🔔 The space was opening ~ we crossed the threshold through the power of sound.

Then the concert happened. All the magic of the middle ~ indescribable, unpredictable, unrepeatable. The part no one can script 🎶

And then, instead of just ending with words, they closed it with the senses.

🔦 As we left, the staff lined the path in the dark, flashing their lights to carve out a threshold to walk through. I watched people crossed the threshold and it did something phenomenal ~ it closed the space for them physically and emotionally. Now it is over.

This is what I teach in my Ceremonial Training: The Elements of Ritual ~ how we open and close a space is not decoration. It’s setting the container. It’s what tells our nervous system this is now set apart from ordinary time or place.

Mission Hill didn’t call it a ritual. They didn’t need to. The bells and the flashlights did the work, marking a beginning we could hear, and an ending we could walk through.

~

What concert rituals have you witnessed?

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Thank you Megan Sheldon of @beceremonial for your moving and insightful Connecting Our Community session on “The Silent Thresholds”.

We are grateful to Megan for sharing her tender witness to the silent thresholds, and for the creative tools she offers to craft ceremony & rituals where language, form, and recognition have yet to exist.

🔗 You can still register for the link. (In our bio)

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I’m so excited and proud to share this brilliant new book, Ritual Without Religion, written by my friend and colleague Megan Sheldon @beceremonial

Megan is such a skilled ritual and ceremony thought partner, and she and her app, Be Ceremonial, are go-to resources for me when I am feeling the need to mark an important (or everyday!) moment in my life.

That’s why I was totally honoured and delighted when Megan asked me to write the foreword for the book. In it, I shared one of the most intimate and powerful rituals I’ve ever created, and how it impacted my life.

This book is for you whether you’ve been longing for ritual but don’t know where to begin or you’re a seasoned ritualist and want to add depth, research evidence and richness to your practice - and any ritually-curious folks in between!

The book is available wherever books are sold 💙

Congrats Megan!

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Did you miss our Ritual Without Religion event yesterday or are you looking to continue the conversation?

In Ritual Without Religion, humanist celebrant Megan Sheldon explores how the nonreligious can create meaningful rituals and ceremonies that mark life's transitions, and reflect on our deepest values.

It’s a thoughtful summer read for anyone interested in bringing more intention and meaning into everyday life.

#Humanism #Secular #Atheism

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Hello my friends!

🎙️I’m thrilled to be bringing you this episode of The Becoming Podcast with my lovely friend Megan Sheldon @beceremonial . Megan and I have been connected for years through our mutual love of ritual and honouring the threshold moments of our lives. She’s been a previous guest on this podcast, I’ve been a guest on her podcast, and we’ve collaborated many times. This time, I’m so excited to be sharing this conversation as Megan prepares to launch her book into the world. I was honoured to be an early reader of this book, and Megan even invited me to write the foreword! I can’t wait until you can read it, too!

Here’s some of what Megan and I talk about in our conversation:

✔️ The backstory of Megan’s book, Ritual Without Religion, and how for so long she felt she couldn’t access the ritual and ceremony that she longed for because she wasn’t raised with a religious background.

✔️ How important it is bring ritual and ceremony into our lives in the small moments, not just the big ones.

✔️ An overview of Ritual Without Religion, including its’ sections on the nature of ritual, the science of ritual, the art of ritual and the practice of ritual. Megan covers topics like the effect of ritual on our bodies, how to hold space for ritual, rituals that “colour outside the lines,” as well as tangible tools to help readers bring more ritual and ceremony into their lives.

✔️ The fact that our culture seems to be undergoing a paradigm shift whereby more and more people are craving, talking about and engaging in ritual.

✔️ The idea of ceremony-as-survival – that doing ritual isn’t just a “nice thing to do,” but that it was actually central to our ancestors’ survival, and core to our modern wellbeing as well.

✔️ How ritual is a muscle that we need to learn to flex before we really need it in a moment of crisis or desperation.

✔️ How we can do ceremony with people who aren’t super into it, becoming more confident ritual and ceremony leaders and facilitators.

🔗 Head over to my bio or wherever you get your podcasts to tune in!

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Hello my friends!

🎙️I’m thrilled to be bringing you this episode of The Becoming Podcast with my lovely friend Megan Sheldon @beceremonial . Megan and I have been connected for years through our mutual love of ritual and honouring the threshold moments of our lives. She’s been a previous guest on this podcast, I’ve been a guest on her podcast, and we’ve collaborated many times. This time, I’m so excited to be sharing this conversation as Megan prepares to launch her book into the world. I was honoured to be an early reader of this book, and Megan even invited me to write the foreword! I can’t wait until you can read it, too!

Here’s some of what Megan and I talk about in our conversation:

✔️ The backstory of Megan’s book, Ritual Without Religion, and how for so long she felt she couldn’t access the ritual and ceremony that she longed for because she wasn’t raised with a religious background.

✔️ How important it is bring ritual and ceremony into our lives in the small moments, not just the big ones.

✔️ An overview of Ritual Without Religion, including its’ sections on the nature of ritual, the science of ritual, the art of ritual and the practice of ritual. Megan covers topics like the effect of ritual on our bodies, how to hold space for ritual, rituals that “colour outside the lines,” as well as tangible tools to help readers bring more ritual and ceremony into their lives.

✔️ The fact that our culture seems to be undergoing a paradigm shift whereby more and more people are craving, talking about and engaging in ritual.

✔️ The idea of ceremony-as-survival – that doing ritual isn’t just a “nice thing to do,” but that it was actually central to our ancestors’ survival, and core to our modern wellbeing as well.

✔️ How ritual is a muscle that we need to learn to flex before we really need it in a moment of crisis or desperation.

✔️ How we can do ceremony with people who aren’t super into it, becoming more confident ritual and ceremony leaders and facilitators.

🔗 Head over to my bio or wherever you get your podcasts to tune in!

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We invite you to a virtual celebration of the upcoming book 'Ritual Without Religion: A Humanist Guide to Creating Secular Ceremonies' by Megan Sheldon.

Megan is a cultural mythologist, humanist celebrant, end-of-life doula, and co-founder of @beceremonial, the world's first guided ritual and ceremony platform. With hundreds of ceremonies crafted for life's major passages and the "seemingly invisible moments of change," Megan has dedicated her work to reclaiming our human birthright of creating universal ritual that is accessible and meaningful.

Join us for an evening that includes a reading and conversation with Megan about the book and what it offers, community sharing and connection with fellow humanists, and a virtual ritual to welcome this book into the world.

Whether you're a celebrant, a humanist, or simply someone who believes that life's moments deserve to be marked with intention, this evening is for you.

Register through the link in our bio.

#Humanism #SecularCeremonies #RitualWithoutReligion #Community #MeaningMaking #SecularHumanism #Ceremony

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🎙️New Podcast

We have a ceremony for the “I Do,” but what about the “I’m Done”? 💍➡️🕯️

Society celebrates the beginning of a marriage with flowers, music, and a room full of witnesses. But when a relationship ends, we’re often met with silence and stigma.

In my latest episode, I’m joined by @beceremonial co-founder Megan Sheldon to talk about why we need to stop hiding our separations and start honoring the “invisible” transitions.

What we’re diving into:
✨ Why divorce grief is so neglected (and how to name it).
✨ Creating rituals without religion to process big emotions.
✨ Why your “village” needs to show up for your ending just as much as your beginning.

It’s time to move from embarrassment to intentionality.

Link in bio to listen to the full conversation. 🎙️

#DivorceRecovery #Ritual #BeCeremonial #GriefWork #justseparatedpodcast

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A ritual at @ted? Are you kidding me!

What would a real-time #ritual of renewal look like at TED?

That's the question I was asked to answer this week at #ted2026. And what a profound and meaningful time we had bringing together two, standing-room-only crowds where people shared the personal and professional struggles they're experiencing in this moment of overwhelming change.

Drawing on ideas from my new #book, A TIME TO GATHER, guests from the around the world joined in welcoming one another with joy; expressing their deepest fears over bitter chocolate and their sweetest dreams over milk chocolate; shedding their burdens with hand-ripped chunks of bread; expressing wishes for their colleagues with candles in water; and carrying home the hopes of others with messages scripted on stones.

We managed to do what all good rituals do: turn fear into hope.

Special thanks to everyone who made this possible, especially Cyndi Stivers, Nicole Darsney, Destiny Haggett, and Susan Zimmerman. To all who came, including Esther Perel, June Cohen, Sunny Bates, and others. And to @MeganSheldon for sage advice!

Rituals created the world; rituals are the only thing strong enough to save us.

We will get through this time—together.

All of us.

🙏🩵📚

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