Outegration
What is ‘Outegration’?
Outegration is a term invented by Dr Ros watts to describe the next phase after ‘Integration’. Outegration is the process of offering the gifts of Integration with people close to your home to create resilient, connected communities around the world. First we integrate (take in) and then we outegrate (offer out).
How Does It Work?
Once graduates of ACER have completed their first cycle, some of them are invited to stay on as Elders. They are wise, safe pairs of hands who help to guide and support the community. These elders have all been through the process of Integration - taking in all the gifts and learnings from our big experiences, the 12 trees, the ACER practices and the community.
After the gifts have been fully accepted, connected and embodied, they can be shared with local communities to create little ‘islands of connectedness’ in which to share some of the practices and ideas with people who live nearby: friends, neighbours, people from our workplace, church or school.
Outegrators are gifted four of the videos and Tree Journeys (Yew-November, Redwood-March, Fir- May and Apple- August) and other materials needed to hold four local gatherings per year. The gatherings comprise: showing the video about the tree, listening to the Tree Journey, having a sharing circle together about what the video and journey brought up for people, and potentially some informal social time. The peer-led support groups happen in local spaces, for local people, free of charge. Our Outegrators have held gatherings in their living rooms, local libraries, community gardens and yoga studios (where venues are hired, local attendees are asked to make a small contribution to cover the cost). Outegrators from all cohorts meet together online with Dr Watt’s about 6 times a year to review how our last Outegration gathering went and plan for the next one. Experienced Outegrators share tips with those just beginning. The project has flourished and is now many ACER members’ favourite aspect of the community (it is certainly Dr Watts’).
The Celtic Cuaird
These local gatherings offer a way of coming together for people who may not otherwise feel connected. We used to have gathering spaces- in the celtic tradition there was the Cuaird- (‘circuit’). The village elders would open their houses sometimes, so that anyone could come sit by their fire and share their troubles. The atomisation of modern culture has eroded local communities, turned the old gathering spaces into stores and apartments, and left us disconnected from our neighbours. Political polarisation can alienate us from the people who live close to us. Nature is a great connector. Everybody loves trees. Our Tree Journeys are relevant to anyone, any age, any political persuasion, any spiritual or religious inclination. Outegration gatherings are places to discuss the importance of the Nature Codes: to come back into a slower, more accepting way of being together.
Outegration gatherings are our way of reigniting the Celtic Cuaird- opening up spaces to embark on gentle connective practices together, practice looking at each other as trees, being together in a spirit of acceptance. The Outegration workshop formula is tried and tested and a great way for us to start being agents of connectedness in our local communities.
““When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.””
Do Outegration community gatherings include discussion about psychedelics?
No. We don’t focus on talking about psychedelics in these local gatherings, but instead the importance of Connectedness more generally. While the ACER offering is often used for integration after psychedelics, we do not want to advocate for the use of psychedelics or encourage anyone to take them, instead we advocate for the core values of ACER (Acceptance, Connectedness, Embodiment and Restoring ourselves to the Nature Codes). However, although Outegration sessions do not specifically talk about psychedelics, offering them can be a very important and often forgotten part of our Outegrators’ psychedelic integration processes. Psychedelic experiences can be like ‘hero’s journeys’ :we hear the call to adventure, face a challenge, return home with new knowledge. But we shouldn’t stop there. In the original Hero’s Journey myth by Joseph Campbell, the returning hero is not just meant to hold on to the new knowledge for themselves, but to use their new knowledge to change the culture. Rather than using psychedelics for personal optimisation only, we can to use our experiences to support collective transformation. Outegration offers a way to bring the ‘We’ instead of the ‘Me’ into our psychedelic integration process by sharing our practices with people who may not otherwise have come into contact with them.
In these increasingly challenging times, we need to find strength in community and come back to the Nature Codes (living in a more slow, cyclical, interconnected and balanced way). This is the paradigm shift we need and we can be the change we want to see. ACER provides a way for us to start right away alongside new friends who want to be that change too, and to have some fun together along the way.
