WOCA is a nonprofit organization building community through healing arts, wellness, music, dialogue and spiritual connection. Woodstock Center for Awakening
Body workers, social activists, mystics, yogis, savants, psychologists, alternative healers, ecologists, past-life regressionists, religious centers, therapy centers, spas, theaters, music venues, community organizations, musicians, artists,
poets—Woodstock and its surroundings abound with these kinds of people and places and yet there is no center in the town where they may intersect. Woodstock Center for Awakening (WOCA) seeks to be such a place, magnetized by the common calling to awake. WOCA is dedicated to the exploration of awakening in all its forms and to be an event-driven intersection where people and groups may find each other, learn from each other, and prosper. WOCA aims to increase peace, love, equanimity and alignment through communion, example and instruction both locally and globally. We seek to enact earth and social consciousness, conscious activism and personal growth. Through connecting and collaborating with local, awaken-centric people and enterprises, our intention is to be a positive center for awakening in Woodstock, the Catskills and beyond, open to all who find us and whom we will meet wherever they are in their path. In 2023, we plan to initiate the following offerings:
• An annual “Woodstock Festival of Awakening,” a community gathering with mind, body, spirit practitioners, teachers and healers throughout the town and surrounding area. Activities will include workshops, lectures, meditation and movement classes, theater, music and nature walks. The festival will happen both in the residential and public spaces around Woodstock. This would include communal evening performances, music being Woodstock’s abundant resonance and resource. The first Festival, entitled “Forgiveness and Atonement,” is slated to occur September 22-24, the weekend of the 2023 Fall equinox and days before Yom Kippur.
• Unique awakening events/seminars/talks/workshops in collaboration with local partners (houses of worship, monasteries, yoga studios, community centers, etc.) in which mindfulness, alternative health, lectures, retreats, the arts and classes in movement such as, among others, Sufi whirling, yoga and qigong, will be explored.
• An annual Awakening Film Marathon: A series of mind, body, spirit films in several locations around town with a relevant lecture or presentation about the topic of the film, with open discussion with the audience. The Marathon would occur over a weekend and would coincide with other awakening-themed activities related to the films and to the act of being an “audience.”
• Woodstock Center for Awakening: This therapeutic face of our enterprise is based on a question, “What do you want to awake?” We will support individuals to craft and answer that question and accompany them on their quest. We would work with local providers and resources, building uniquely tailored courses of instruction, referrals and activities directed to achieving their desire.
