The Imagination Work of ACER Integration
In a world that so often pulls us away—from nature, from our own inner landscapes, from one another—ACER Integration offers a quiet return. It’s not an integration program in the traditional sense. It’s a practice, a rhythm, a remembering. Each month, we orient around a different tree—not as an object to study, but as a living metaphor, a guide, a companion. Through contemplative practices, shared space and ritual, and simple presence, we begin to reweave connection in places that have felt frayed or forgotten. Whether you're standing barefoot in a forest or lying on your sofa imagining one, ACER meets you where you are—and invites you gently into something deeper.
ACER Integration is imagination work. Imagination work is the practice of allowing ourselves to enter the creative space where new ideas, possibilities, and inner landscapes can emerge. It’s less about striving and more about softening—into curiosity, into possibility, into what might be.
In ACER Integration, we’re invited to step into a forest. To feel the earth beneath our feet. To touch the rough bark of a tree. To walk along a riverbank. To speak to an animal companion. To be held by a loving presence. To meet guides, ancestors, and parts of ourselves we’ve forgotten or not yet met. Some of this is possible in the physical world. Much of it is not. And so, we imagine.
In today’s world, we are required to imagine very little. When I was growing up, we didn’t have instant access to video games or the whole world at the tips of our fingers. We had to make swords out of sticks, inside-out shirts into wigs, piles of dirt into thrones. We had to create our fantasy world and we got to invite others into it as well. As if by magic, we could all see the same scary monster in the corner, which was really a pile of dirty clothes. We could all touch the face of the handsome prince or beautiful princess, which was really a mop. And we could all step on stage at Madison Square Garden and perform our newest dance routine to a screaming throng of people all jostling for position up front.
Now, the images are handed to us. The stories are pre-written. Our ability to imagine—really imagine—begins to atrophy. We lose the spark of what could be because we’re consumed by what already is. And if we’re not careful, this way of being can become a cage. But imagination offers freedom. And imagination is a muscle. In ACER, we exercise it. We return to the wild, the strange, the playful. We let trees be our guides. We connect through symbol and sensation, across landscapes and time zones.
We’re often asked, “What if I don’t have this particular tree near me?” That’s OK because ACER isn’t about exact geography—it’s about inner relationship. Can you imagine the tree? Let it root into the fertile ground of your mind? Or, is there a similar one you can be with instead? Our Australian participants have become beautiful examples of this—substituting paperbark for silver birch, lemon eucalyptus for hawthorn. No Douglas fir nearby? Maybe a spruce or pine will offer its presence.
The videos we offer each month, which introduce the tree, are simply a beginning. An anchor. We invite your imagination to take it from there.
There’s no one “right” way to engage with ACER Integration. We’re not prescriptive, and in our sharing circles, dreams are as welcome as the day-to-day or the deeply felt. The surreal, the mundane, the messy middle—it’s all welcome here. We have participants from all walks of life, working with and through all kinds of experiences: psychedelic journeys, long-held trauma, chronic illnesses, grief. Imagination can offer an escape, yes—but it can also build our capacity for courage and curiosity. It can help us face what’s been haunting us, accept what is, and survive what once felt unsurvivable.
What we offer in ACER, aside from our global online community, is metaphor. A gentle, supportive structure for accessing the places that feel too raw, too complex, or too heavy to approach head-on. If I’m in a moment where I can’t forgive myself, can I imagine a blossom gently holding the thorn on my branch? Can both the soft and the sharp exist together? And if they can coexist on the hawthorn tree, might they also coexist in me?
Metaphor becomes a doorway. It lets us get close to what’s hard to name. It gives us a way in—when the direct path feels too much. And from there, something can begin to move.
That’s not to say people aren’t going out into the world and connecting with trees—and with one another. They absolutely are. But not everyone who would like to is as able to. That’s why ACER Integration is just as much for the intrepid mountain climber as it is for the person who is suffering from ill health and is bed-bound. It’s as much for those in the inner city as it is for those living deep in the woods. It’s for anyone who can imagine somewhere else, even if they never leave where they are. Because imagination makes space. And sometimes, that space is enough to begin healing.
Imagination isn’t just play—it’s power. It’s what allows us to create more just, more spacious, more humane ways of being. It helps us soften binaries, move beyond headlines, and listen inward. It invites nuance and flexibility where there’s pressure to stay rigid. In ACER Integration, we honour imagination not as way to bypass reality, but as a doorway into deeper truths. When we let ourselves imagine—truly imagine—we make room for what hasn’t yet been lived, but longs to be. We connect to ourselves, to others and to the wider world in new and exciting ways. We dare to dream better for ourselves and the world we live in. This is imagination work.