Mobile Monastery Chautauqua
A spiritual community on wheels
Background
The Mobile Monastery Chautauqua was inspired by the circuit chautauquas of the early 20th century. Circuit chautauquas traveled the country sharing education, culture, and spiritual teachings through lectures, workshops and performances. By the 1930s the original Chautauqua Movement nearly died out, due to mass transit and mass media, as well as other factors. Our goal is to carry forward the spirit of the Chautauqua Movement by sharing practices that foster culture and community through in-person connection.
The Mobile Monastery Chautauqua is deeply rooted in modern monasticism. Founder Autumn Turley is a long-time practitioner and has spent years as a “modern monastic”. We specialize in teaching meditation, chanting and mindful relating inspired by practices taught at modern monasteries in the CEDAR Lineage. We draw from an eclectic group of Mobile Monastery Teachers whose offerings range from embodiment to sound healing to nature bathing. Our events also feature art, music, massage, and tea. We have the flexibility to creatively customize our offerings to best serve your community’s interests and needs.
Purpose
Just as our bodies need nutrients, exercise, and sleep to thrive, we need nourishment throughout all aspects of our lives. Now more than ever we are called to bring wellness, spirituality, and community to the world. The Mobile Monastery Chautauqua connects local communities through our traveling spiritual carnival. We leverage an ecology of practices from modern monasticism, earth-based modalities, and healing arts. It’s our joy to nourish hearts, minds, and spirits throughout the land.
Autumn Turley
Autumn is a 5th generation Californian with a background as a Violinist, Massage Practitioner, Contact Improv teacher, Poet, and Project Manager.
Before joining The Monastic Academy in 2017, she co-founded the Bridge Within movement and traveled the US and Canada doing massage, teaching Contact Improv, and organizing events. She is also co-founder of I Am We, a consciously curated resource network that bridges the communities of integrative spirituality, holistic health, sustainable living, and creative and performing arts. She is passionate about networking, growth, helping people discover and actualize their dreams, going on adventures, sharing art and healing and movement, creative collaborative projects, community-building, Spiritual Practice, and the ocean.
Sky Taylor
Prior to joining MAPLE (Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Live on Earth), Sky was involved in a smattering of do-good initiatives, including refugee resettlement, Middle East Peace, and obtaining a university degree in Global Health; worked on climate policy, diplomatic relations, and founded a hacker/makerspace in Vietnam; and supported the Center for Effective Altruism and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.
In 2018 he took sabbatical and dove deep into meditation, play, dance, organizing community events, writing, research, revering nature, elderly caregiving, fitness, friendship, family and love. He could have easily kept living this way forever, but having glimpsed the magnitude of the crises facing society and life on earth through his previous work, and he knew he needed to do more.
Joining MAPLE has been his means of wedding this spiritual unfolding with his drive to be of greatest service in this time of crisis.
Matthew Barrieau
Matthew (re)turned to the spiritual path as the Covid pandemic forced him to (re)consider his relationship with suffering, both his own and that of all living beings. He studied literature as an undergraduate, followed by a postgraduate fellowship in Ireland. He has worked at the intersection of cultural education, historic preservation, and ecological conservation, as well as volunteering at hospitals, schools, and organic farms.
At the start of 2021, he took MAPLE’s online Fundamentals course to deepen his meditation practice. He sat his first retreat at MAPLE’s campus in Vermont that spring and served as an apprentice that fall. He regularly visits MAPLE while working part-time and training for a certification in Circling through CircleAnywhere’s Level Up program.
