Our Story
The Woodstock Center for Awakening began with a memorial and a phone call. When Jogger John died in November 2022, the whole town gathered. What followed—a conversation between Michael Raphael and Sam Truitt about what Woodstock needed—became WOCA: an intersection where spiritual traditions meet contemporary thought and healing, where individual practice meets collective action, and where awakening isn't a concept but an experience amplified when people show up together.
We say, "We are not what we think," and sense that the broad, collective, and even planetary acceptance of this simple understanding might prove the preservation of our world.
A New York-based 501(c)3 nonprofit, we connect with local people and organizations engaged in healing modalities and the arts. By the community, for the community, and all by donation, we seek to assemble a host of healing radicals. Our intention: to be a positive center for awakening in the Catskills and beyond, to share Woodstock's wealth of awakening and healing arts with the world, and to meet everyone wherever they are in their path.
Where two heartways meet there stands no temple to Apollo.— Rainer Maria Rilke
What distinguishes the Center's activities from other organizations that might fall within the wellness universe is that we seek to call to us without categorical distinction those area people and groups that self-identify "awakening" as core to their mission and aspiration. Also, utilizing positive, non-violent communication with a conflict-positive approach, we are building an infrastructure to facilitate positive communication between the different and diverse aspects of our town. Centered around myriad forms of our community healing, resiliency, gatherings and fostering collaboration, we hope our project may bring us together to face our time, the challenges of the moment and being there here, together.
