ACER Cycle

How It Works

ACER Integration is a year-long cycle designed to provide a framework for more thorough, thoughtful psychedelic integration.  It is based around the ACE (Accept, Connect, Embody) therapeutic framework written by Dr Rosalind Watts with the addition of a fourth step - Restore.  The cycle is completed in real-time within a closed community. It is this collective aspect that, although proven to be of great benefit to overall wellbeing, is often missing from the Western model of healing.

Benefits for You

ACER helps us to create a clear path of cyclical change for our lives and to increase connection to self, others and the natural world.  Community members have reported many positive changes to their lives after joining ACER:

  • Reducing stress and anxiety by Self-regulation and coming in to the present moment

  • Moving away from old patterns and resentments through insights and breakthroughs to clarify value

  • Feeling encouraged, supported and held by the community

  • Creating a sustainable rhythm of life with a clear path of learning and change

  • Collaborating to increase creativity and inspiration

  • Expanding your horizons locally and globally by being an agent of connectedness.

  • Appreciating the gifts we have and embodying learning with joy.  Possible new path of purpose-led work.

Core Practices

Tree Journeys

Each month of the cycle takes inspiration from a different tree. Using guided meditations, written materials, and reflective practices, the Tree Journeys are designed to cultivate a greater connection to nature, to the Self, and others. Dr Watts introduces each new tree with a short video, and each journey is set to beautiful bespoke music.  

As each month passes, you’ll become more aware of, and in tune with, the natural world.  You’ll learn new ways of applying and embodying the wisdom of the trees to keep you grounded and rooted to who you are at your heart.

Sharing Circles

Our small group sharing circles enable you to process the teachings from each month by speaking aloud your own experience and witnessing the experiences of others.  Circles are held by trained ACER sharing circle facilitators who have all completed the ACER cycle themselves. They come from many walks of life: some have had careers in the helping professions but show up here as fellow explorers rather than as therapists. All our facilitators have shown a natural ability to listen with deep respect and to create safe, warm, welcoming sharing spaces. 

Once you have completed the year-long cycle of ACER Integration, you will be eligible to apply to become a sharing circle facilitator within the ACER Integration community.

Q&A Sesions

The hive mind grows every month as Dr Watts talks live to a new inspiring guest about topics of  interest and importance to our community. You can attend the session to be part of the conversation, or listen on catch-up afterwards.

Breathwork

Breathwork is an excellent tool for integration after psychedelics and a powerful embodiment practice. During the ACER Integration cycle, you will have access to drop-in breathwork sessions to support you in connecting more deeply to mind and body and expanding this connection beyond the self.  

The drop-in sessions are monthly, and there are longer, more in-depth guided Breathwork Journeys to coincide with the Eightfold wheel of the Celtic calendar.  These deeper breathwork sessions are designed to induce altered states of consciousness. Led by trained professionals, each session is conducted privately within the supportive environment of the ACER community.

Music Meditations

Our music meditations are set to music by world class musicians such as Jon Hopkins. They range from 5 to 25 minutes long and fit into your life  to keep you anchored to the ACER Integration process.  We have a music meditation for every mood, to enhance your ACER journey. You can listen at home, on your lunch break, in the forest, or join with other ACERs from all over the world to tune in together. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to regularly make time to Accept, Connect, Embody and Restore. 

Orison Tree Circles

 Dr Watts created the Orison Tree journey as a standalone practice for processing grief and clarifying what we need help with. You can sign up to acess the Orison Tree recording. Within ACER we have regular facilitated sharing circles to listen to the Orison Tree together and then process our feelings and responses in a small group.

“The disconnectedness of modern culture has left many of us feeling empty, lost and alone. Many of us didn’t grow up with a sense of feeling at home in ourselves, connected to who we are and why we are here, the land that we live on, close-knit community, and the ancestors who came before. This is why I started ACER..” 

— Dr Rosalind Watts

Our Community

  • Community Connection

    Being part of the community is essential to the integration cycle.  There is huge relief in feeling part of a group of people who we can know deeply and be deeply known by, care for and be cared for by.  ACER uses the magic of modern global connectedness to help us revitalise a much older sense of ‘Anam Cara’ (soul friendship) with like-minded and like-hearted people from all corners of the world. 

  • Laugh, create and dance together

    The Twelve Tree cycle invites us on a journey of deep inner work, but we need places of lightness and play too. You might attend Leonie’s Tree Dance (a 40 min freestyle  music and movement session with 12 playlists compiled by Dr Watts).  You could join Wood Whittling where we meet to carve ‘tree sticks’ (one for every Tree Teacher) and share music and stories as we whittle away.  Each month we also have ‘drop in chat spaces’  to share a virtual cup of tea.

  • Your Orchard

    Each community member is assigned their own ‘Orchard’ - a group of 6-12 participants who follow the 12 month program together.  Your orchard is a place where you will be able to unpack and process in a smaller group. After leaving ACER, many of our Orchard groups continue to meet monthly as they deepen their spiral journey around the Twelve Tree cycle. Orchards are arranged by location and timezone, making it easier to meet some of our ACER friends in real life.

  • Connect Locally and Globally

    Making new connections with other community members happens quickly, even with other participants on the other side of the world - holding the community online doesn’t stop people in different countries building strong lasting bonds.  Participants who live close to each other also meet up in person to hang out and go for nature walks.

Elders’ Orchard

Beyond Your First Cycle

We started an Elders’ Orchard when our first ever cohort completed the first cycle and many of them surprised us by wanting to stay on for another year. We had the idea that graduates of the first cycle could apply to stay on as ‘Elders’ and be placed together in an Elders Orchard.

Some of our Elders stay with us to repeat the cycle and deepen their spiral journey with each Tree’s teaching.  Some of our Elders host ACER sessions such as Book Club, where we meet monthly to discuss a chapter of the amazing book ‘US’ by Terry Real.  This book is a practical manual for how to nurture more connected and balanced relationships, and contribute to a paradigm shift towards  ‘Us Consciousness’ which Terry describes as shifting from ‘You and Me’ to ‘We’.