Our Story
The Center for Awakening arose in 2023 out of friendship, a common awareness about what is important in this life, and a shared vision that a Woodstock Center for Awakening might do some good in the world. Aside from that, these friends and founders Michael Raphael and Sam Truitt acknowledge, it has been a lot of organizing and sometimes disorganizing. From our founding arose a cross section of people and events, including our Festivals, interwoven with care for our real nature. We’d be happy anytime to talk about how it all began and this extraordinary experience of what we are together.
We say, “We are not what we think”—and feel that a broad, and even collective, acceptance of this simple proposition 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.
