ACER Cycle
How It Works
ACER Integration is a yearlong cycle developed by Dr. Rosalind Watts to create modern forms of community and spaces where people can be honest, be witnessed, and be part of something collective.The cycle moves through twelve tree archetypes, inspired by the Celtic Tree Calendar Each month brings new practices, new reflection and new opportunity to bring insight from experience into daily life.
This collective dimension is what makes ACER distinct. Sustaining openness is rarely something you can do alone. The environment around you matters. ACER provides that environment: a shared space where your experience is met, and where connectedness is lived rather than longed for.
What Changes Over Time?
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.
When people describe what shifted for them in ACER, the words come up again and again. Loneliness lifting. Showing up as themselves, sometimes for the first time. Friendships forming with strangers across continents that become some of the most important relationships in their lives. The slow knowing that they are part of a community that will stay through the ups and downs, not only the breakthroughs.
Many came looking for what therapy and trials couldn't give them: somewhere to bring the grief and the love, the rage and the wonder, and be met by a circle of people across the months and years. One member calls it "the missing part of therapy." Another says, "it restores my faith in human beings."
A Rhythm You Can Stay With
A yearlong cycle of practices and shared experience designed to help what you've already touched become something stable and lived. Designed to deepen your connectedness and make it something you live from every day.
Core Practices
Tree Journeys
Guided visualisations and practices inspired by nature.
Sharing Circles
Peer-led virtual containers to support you on your journey.
Community Forum
Accessible, curious global community of people connected by experience and purpose.
Q&A Sessions
Monthly Q&A drop-in sessions with Dr. Watts and incredible guests,
Breathwork & Dance
Live and recorded guided breathwork journeys and a monthly community dance.
Music Meditations
Mindfully-created resources to deepen your practice and connection to nature.
Our Community
A Place to Be Met as You Are
Being part of the global community is central to the ACER Integration cycle. There is real relief in feeling known by a group of people, and in knowing them in return.
As ACER meets online, it allows people from across the world to find each other and revive something much older: what the Gaelic tradition calls Anam Cara, or soul friendship. The bonds that form here often extend well beyond the initial year.
Joy, Laughter, and Letting off Steam
The twelve-tree cycle is a journey of depth, and it needs spaces for joy and lightness alongside it. Community Dance offers a forty-minute freestyle movement session each month. Mindful Creative Space brings people together to use their right brain and create something based on feeling. Loud Cathartic Singing is where we meet to belt out songs, mics muted, and feel what singing does to your body no matter what you sound like. Drop-in chat spaces open each month for informal gatherings. These moments matter as much as the structured practices.
Your Orchard
Each participant is placed in an Orchard: a group of 10-12 people who move through the twelve-month program together.
Your Orchard is a place to unpack and process in a smaller, more intimate setting. Orchards are arranged by location and timezone, making it easier to meet in person. Many Orchard groups continue meeting long after the cycle ends.
Local and Global Connection
Connection within ACER moves quickly, even across distance. Participants on opposite sides of the world build lasting relationships through shared experience. Those who live near each other meet for walks, gatherings, and the kind of presence that only comes from being in the same place at the same time.
Community Testimonials
“ACER has been a very valuable and surprisingly sustainable way for me to explore and embody the concept of psychedelic integration over the past year. I’ve found the focus on connection with nature, community, and with time itself as an essential ingredient for growth and maturation truly beautiful.”
— Sander“Being in the ACER community is like walking into a woodland family. You’re welcomed, nourished, encouraged, inspired, connected and rooted.”
— Natasha“I came to ACER looking for community and feel so grateful to be a part of the rich biodiversity of this forest. From the beautifully crafted imagery and music in the tree journeys to the intimate sharing circles, Acer is not only a space for deep self-reflection and healing. It is stirring creativity in me, birthing new ideas, and at a time of transformation and transition, is a gentle guiding hand held in a community of like-minded souls. Highly recommend.”
— LucyBeyond Your First Cycle
Elders’ Orchard
When the first cohort completed the cycle, many wanted to stay. From that, the Elders' Orchard was born. Graduates can apply to remain as Elders, placed together in their own Orchard to deepen their spiral journey with each tree's teaching across another year. Some Elders host ongoing ACER sessions, including a monthly Book Club exploring Terry Real's work on relational consciousness and what it means to move from a sense of you and me toward a genuine sense of we.
Join us at a Live Event
Throughout the year we run free events, led by Dr Rosalind Watts, where you can experience some of the elements of ACER like our guided imagery tree journeys, tree films, sharing circles, breathwork, and more. Each event is unique and we’d love to connect with you in this way. You can find a schedule of upcoming events by pushing the button.
Questions? Book a 30-minute Discovery Call
Stand In The Circle with us and receive a monthly newsletter with news on upcoming events, new discussions and meditations, and seasonal inspirations from the 12 trees of ACER Integration.