Do I need to bring a specific friendship in mind?

No, though you’re welcome to. Some participants come with a particular friendship they’re navigating, while others come to explore the concept more broadly. Both approaches are valuable, and the practices can be applied to any friendship: past, present, or future.

What if I don't know much about rituals or ceremony?

This workshop is designed for everyone, regardless of experience with ritual. We introduce simple, accessible practices that don’t require special skills or prior knowledge.

Will this be sad or heavy?

We’ll explore the full spectrum of friendship: the joy, the grief, the complexity, and the beauty. While we’ll make space for difficult emotions, this isn’t a grief-focused workshop. It’s about honouring all that friendships hold.

What if I can't attend live?

Every registrant receives the full recording, along with the slides and framework, so you can engage with the content on your own time.

Long-time friends together — the sacred nature of friendship

Workshop · Virtual

Friendship Rituals

We ritualize romantic love constantly: first dates, anniversaries, proposals, weddings. Yet our friendships, some of the longest and most sustaining relationships of our lives, unfold largely without ceremony. We rarely mark the moment two people become close, celebrate a friendship anniversary, or acknowledge when a friendship shifts, rests or ends.

This interactive workshop explores how ritual can help us honour friendship with the depth and care it deserves, through every season: tender beginnings, full bloom, times of change, and endings.

Why friendship needs ritual now

In 2025, the World Health Organization reported that 1 in 6 people worldwide is affected by loneliness, linked to more than 871,000 deaths every year.
In 2021, 12% of American adults said they had no close friends, four times as many as in 1990.
Research from the University of Kansas found it takes around 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, and more than 200 hours to become close friends.
Modern life makes those hours harder to find. We're more spread out, more tapped out, and have fewer of the natural rhythms that once brought us together.

Ritual gives friendship the structure and intention it needs to grow, change and, sometimes, complete.

Format: Virtual

Two figures walking apart as a friendship comes to an end

Who Should Attend?

Anyone seeking to bring more intention and ritual to their friendships
People navigating a friendship transition: beginning, deepening, changing or ending
Anyone whose friendships shifted after a move, a new baby, a career change or a new season of life
Anyone carrying unexpressed feelings within a friendship
Anyone grieving a friendship that ended without a goodbye
Anyone who wants to celebrate friendship milestones and longevity

What to expect

This 2-hour live workshop on Zoom weaves together teachings on the four seasons of friendship, ritual ideas for each season, and guided rituals to open and close our space. You'll have time to share in small groups and to gather as a larger circle for collective wisdom sharing.

Participants are invited to bring a pen, three small pieces of paper, an object that represents a meaningful friendship, and a willingness to honour the friendships that have shaped their lives.

What we'll explore

Spring, new friendships: building rituals from scratch, finding the courage to put yourself out there, and noticing the moment an acquaintance becomes a friend.
Summer, friendships in full bloom: rituals that deepen trust and connection, keep a steady rhythm, and celebrate the milestones you witness in each other's lives.
Fall, friendships in change: when a move, a new baby, a divorce or grief shifts things between you. How to name what has changed, when rupture calls for repair, and when it may be time to begin letting go.
Winter, endings and rest: what if a friendship didn't fail, but completed? Rituals to grieve, release, or let a friendship lie fallow for a while.
A framework to take home: ten principles for crafting friendship rituals together that actually last.

What participants say

Friendships—so often quiet, so often taken for granted—have held me through some of the lowest valleys of my life.

Megan and Kate's reflections on the seasons of friendship felt both tender and true, naming the ebb and flow with such care. The invitation to create rituals of friendship stirred something deep in me—a remembering, a longing, a gentle call to intention.

I leave feeling grateful, and softly inspired… already imagining the rituals I will co-create with the dear friends who walk beside me. 💛

I signed up for the workshop with curiosity. I soon realised that on some level I knew I was searching for a way to negotiate a friendship that no longer served me. I created my own ritual to "winter" this friendship, and it felt like the right thing to do. It gave me peace. Thank you.

Examining my friendships through the lens of "seasons" has been noteworthy. I'm more aware of the shifts — intended or incidental — that have happened, and am eager to explore those changes more deeply.

Facilitators

Megan Sheldon

Ceremony Guide & Ritual Designer

Megan Sheldon (she/her) is a cultural mythologist, humanist celebrant, end-of-life doula, and co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world's first guided ritual and ceremony platform. She is the author of Ritual Without Religion: A Humanist Guide to Creating Secular Ceremonies, and has spent years crafting ceremonies across the life cycle, with a focus on grief and loss. Her passion is helping people cross the silent thresholds and mark those seemingly invisible moments of change with meaning. She offers workshops, courses and in-person retreats near her home in North Vancouver, BC.

Kate Love

Director of Learning

Kate is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and a former Life & Loss Coach who focused on postpartum, grief, and legacy coaching. With a background in social work, she has a passion for deep conversations around how we care for ourselves so that we can take care of others. As our Director of Learning, Kate helps develop our ritual courses and ceremony workshops, weaving in her knowledge regarding mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. You can follow Kate’s journey here.