The Woodstock Center for Awakening’s inaugural Woodstock Community Festival of Awakening is set for September 22 through 24 throughout the town.
In what organizers hope becomes an annual event, it is a weekend of music, dancing and healing.
“I’ve been here for quite a while. I’ve been here about 20 years. And Woodstock has been going through a major shift and change in terms of population in terms of what’s at the center of Woodstock, I would say it’s not only a population shift, but it’s also a character shift to some degree,” organizer Michael Raphael said.
“Woodstock is probably one one of the most famous small towns in the world, probably. And it’s all based on an event. That was a very important culminating event for the 20th century… the Woodstock Festival. But since then Woodstock has not really produced something that we can say is clear. There’s no real message coming from Woodstock, except that this is where the festival was.”
That’s when the idea for the festival came into fruition, he explained.
“The community here attracts a lot of artists, a lot of practitioners, a lot of body healers, all kinds of people who are attracted to that message of Woodstock, but in actuality, what is Woodstock,” he asked.
“It’s a great little town with a lot of bars and some venues for live music, and a lot of tie dye t-shirts. And this whole process that we’re trying to get into here with the Woodstock Center for Awakening is really first of all, to kind of clarify a little bit more about what Woodstock is,” he said.
“What can Woodstock offer to the person who comes here, besides tie dye t-shirts and incense burners.”
Raphael said the plan is to bring content the community can create.
“So the festival is a methodology of collaborating the community and kind of offering to the world something from Woodstock, besides the commercial (aspects) that are nice, and I’m not downplaying it. And of course, it’s important, it brings a lot of tourists. It’s important for the survival of the town. But we’re trying to bring some content,” he said.
“Emma Lee, who is one of our collaborators… she recently articulated the festival and the center is by the community, for the community, and all by donation,” organizer Sam Truitt said.
“It’s the places that are capable of collaborating and working together that will evolve the new paradigm for how human beings may be together based on the hypothesis that we’re in global collapse and just waiting for it to catch up.”
Raphael said the festival will feature a variety of events ranging from talks about Woodstock in the 21st century to meditation to qigong to holy chanting, as well as live music.
The whole weekend kicks off Friday with what Truitt calls a “super-duper tricked-out opening ceremony” at 5:30 p.m., followed by a community meal from 6:30-8 p.m., both at the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center.
Saturday features a full day of events at the ESKFF Nest, Mothership Gallery and sessions from 1-6 p.m. at Bearsville Center and is capped off by a community awakening concert at Colony from 5-8 p.m. hosted by Mothership’s Paul McMahon.
Sunday starts with meditation at the Mothership, features a poetry garden party at Shivastan Poetry Ashram and a closing ceremony that segues into the Woodstock Community Drum Circle on the Village Green.
Sessions and the concert have a $10 suggested donation, though organizers say nobody will be turned away for inability to pay.
“All walks of life in Woodstock should be able to come together, because there isn’t an economic barrier to entry. It’s a suggested donation,” Truitt said.
In all about 50-60 practitioners will participate.
“Some of them are just musicians, rock musicians, who will be offering some of their music. There’ll be massages, there will be astrologists, there will be yoga instructors, Qigong, Sufi dancing…” Truitt said.
For more information about the festival and a full schedule including the Awakening directory, visit woodstockawakening.org.
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