Dear Reader,

The last few months have been a beautiful and full season here at Bryn Y Blodau.

The land has been generous, the garden abundant, and we have welcomed mothers, children, friends, families, elders, growers, healers and visitors from near and far. Through shared food, plant work, ceremony, conversation and simply being together on the land, we have been remembering what can happen when women and families are given space to gather, learn and connect outside of the usual structures.

This summer has helped us see more clearly what is growing here — not only in the garden, but in the community around it. The garden has continued to offer a place for mothers to gather, breathe, learn about plants and reconnect with the land.

There is something very simple and powerful about coming together on the land, with children free to play while mothers talk, gather food and share their experiences. These moments of connection are at the heart of what we are really nurturing here... 💚

Team WellMama at Eisteddfod

On Wednesday 5 August, Katharine and Samara attended the Eisteddfod, representing WellMama and the Porth Gwyrdd scheme. They were fortunate to meet Dame Julia, who was incredibly encouraging about the project and enthusiastic about the vision to expand WellMama’s Mothers' Garden. We spoke about the importance of ecological projects, creating opportunities for young people, and supporting mothers through pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond. The day offered a meaningful opportunity to connect with a wider Welsh community and with others working in related fields. It was encouraging to see how naturally the different strands of the vision here — ecology, women's wellbeing, community and education — can come together. The conversations and encouragement gave renewed energy to the next steps, exploring funding that could help us expand our WellMama Wednesday sessions, support facilitators, bring in guest speakers and offer more activities for mothers and families. Katharine and Samara returned feeling grateful to Porth Gwyrdd for the opportunity to represent the scheme, and inspired by the possibilities for what could grow from the work already beginning at Bryn Y Blodau.

Our August Open Day

On 20 August, we opened Bryn Y Blodau to the wider community. People came from Cardigan and the surrounding villages to spend the day with us, explore the Mothers' Garden and learn more about One Planet Development — and about what becomes possible when people choose to live and work closely with the land. We shared a communal lunch made from the garden: a soup of fat hen, squashes and summer greens, alongside a salad gathered from the Mothers' Garden. There was something deeply nourishing about sitting together and eating food that had grown around us. One of the most important things we noticed during the open day was how many different conversations emerged naturally from simply being together. We spoke about pregnancy experiences, postpartum care, birth itself, and the wisdom and skills that can encourage optimal health and wellbeing. It is becoming increasingly clear to us that there is a lack of safe spaces for women to turn to for holistic, community-based support. We shared knowledge about plants and traditional remedies, and talked about how a relationship with the garden can offer another way of understanding our bodies, our food and our wellbeing.

Womb Wisdom of the Forest

In August, we were honoured to welcome Huni Kuin women from the Brazilian Amazon. They shared plant wisdom and traditional medicine from their own community and guided women through a womb ceremony of ritual cleansing. They bathed us, brewed their plant medicines and shared fertility rituals with us. We gathered in the sacred stone circle for a ritual of cleansing, renewal and calling in new life. The raspberry leaf from our own lands was joined with a native plant from their lands — a profound meeting between two places and two plant traditions. Plants from their village were used to bathe us and make tea, while the ceremony unfolded across multiple languages — their native tongue translated into Portuguese, and then into English. The experience offered something deep and profound. For us, it was a reminder that deep relationships with plants, our bodies and the earth are what connect us across lands and cultures. The plants became a meeting point between worlds.

September in the Mothers' Garden

Our September gathering brought together women from the local community across generations and different paths. We spent the day harvesting nettle seeds, fat hen seeds and hawthorn berries. We gathered squashes and squash leaves from the garden and turned them into a delicious soup, which we ate together. As we sat around the food, we shared stories of where we had come from and what had brought us to this place. Once again, gathering food became a doorway into conversation, connection and community. These experiences continue to shape our understanding of what WellMama is here to offer. The land can be a place of nourishment, but also a place of learning, healing, confidence and belonging. Through plants, food, women's knowledge and coming together, we are creating space to remember things that can easily be lost — how to gather, how to share, how to listen to the land, and how to support one another.

A Summer of Plants

At our gatherings, we have been exploring some of the less familiar parts of plants — particularly seeds! There is so much knowledge around us that is rarely taught: the nourishment held in seeds, the medicinal qualities of wild plants, and the ways our ancestors understood, gathered and ate the plants growing around them. This is part of what we hope to nurture here: a living, practical education rooted in the land.

Not simply how to grow vegetables, but how to notice what is growing around us. How to eat wild. How to work with native plants. How to recognise the abundance that is already here. And how to develop a deeper relationship with the living world.

Bryn Y Botanicals

In August, we gathered with friends and family to begin making our first Bryn Y Botanicals rose products. It was a beautiful, multigenerational day of women working together. We made rose hydrosol, rose oils and rose balms, while documenting the process and sharing knowledge between us.

The products then travelled with us to the Medicine Festival, where we shared them with the wider community and continued developing traditional skills, including willow making and weaving.

It felt like an important beginning — taking what grows here and transforming it into something that can travel beyond the land and be shared with others.

What Calls Us Here?

During our gatherings, we asked a simple question:

What brought you here? What calls you here?

One mother spoke about arriving at Bryn Y Blodau with her three young children and immediately feeling welcome. She described the space as educational and immersive, but also as somewhere that showed her there might be another way of living. She spoke about the relief of meeting other mothers who also questioned some of the assumptions of mainstream systems around healthcare, birth, education and parenting. Most importantly, she described the feeling of realising that she wasn't alone — or wrong — for wanting something different. The expansiveness of the land, she said, gave her space to breathe.

Another woman spoke about having watched this land grow over twenty years, witnessing the love and presence that has gone into it and seeing the movement beginning to happen here.

For Samara, the vision continues to shift and deepen: creating a space where women can be supported in ways that feel different from mainstream systems.

And for Katharine, there is a desire to support Samara in her vision around birth and women's care.

These different perspectives are part of what makes the project what it is.

There is no single story here. There are many people, experiences and visions meeting on the same piece of land.

Looking Forward

This summer has helped us remember that the vision here is bigger than any one project.

We dream of a Mothers' Garden that is accessible to the wider community.

We dream of spaces where mothers and families can gather, eat, learn and rest.

We dream of growing and making more food locally.

We dream of a future café and spaces for workshops, retreats and gatherings.

We dream of restoring the old stone buildings and preserving the history of this land.

We dream of recording the stories of local people and the women who carried knowledge of birth, plants and land before us.

And we dream of creating a place where ecological living, women's health, traditional knowledge, food, birth, community and heritage can exist alongside one another.

For now, though, we are simply grateful for what has already begun. For the mothers who have walked through the garden. For the children who have played here. For the food we have grown and shared. For the plants that have taught us. For the people who have visited, listened and contributed. And for the growing sense that something is taking root here. Thank you for being part of it.

Much love,

Katharine and the WellMama Collective

Tending a Hearth of Maternal Health and Wellbeing

With Heart and Hands