Greetings, dear Reader,

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At WellMama, our mission and passion is cultivating a culture of community, celebration, and collective care - rooted in the knowing that nature, nurture, nutrition and nourishment are the roots of maternal health and wellbeing. We are an intergenerational, multicultural organisation, practicing mutual reciprocity... honouring Earth's capacity to nourish, sustain and heal us, and growing resources and resilience for women, mothers, families, and communities.

One of the beautiful ways we bring this vision to life is through the “Gardd Mamau”, our community garden project at Bryn y Blodau, the hearth and home of WellMama CIC.​ ​ Each week we gather for WellMama Wednesdays - resting within the sanctuary of the land, sharing skills, wisdom, stories, and enjoying a hearty home-grown lunch together. ​Gardd Mamau, our Mothers Garden, shares simple gifts of seasonal abundance - fresh, nourishing produce lovingly sown, grown and tended, offered to pregnant or postpartum women and their families. ​ We are delighted to be collaborating with Parenthood Hub, bringing a little of the garden’s nourishment to the community each month at Nook & Noble (Cardigan). A local WellMama member will be dropping off baskets of freshly harvested seasonal vegetables on the following dates: July 16th, August 20th and September 17th​💚​ ​

Tending Seedlings, Cultivating Community

Last month we were planting seeds that have now become seedlings... Seeds are always planted into darkness — into the dark womb of Mother Earth. Just as life begins in the darkness of our own wombs, so too do seeds grow from the fertile, living earth beneath our feet. When we plant, we make a commitment. We dream, we hope, we believe.

Our dreams are rising from the soil, as seedlings now, growing into nourishment we are sharing with our people, collectives and communities:

• Mother's Garden growing well - first produce will be delivered to Parenthood Hub before solstice
• Seasonal series of events, retreats, and online programmes, in collaboration with True Midwifery
• WellMama CIC Membership Circle starting in September (let us know here if you're interested 🙏🏾)
• Grandmothers Circle, online, starting September (register interest here)

Diolch yn fawr - Thank you so much for supporting us, and for tending your own gardens, and the gardens of your hearts and wombs. None of this is possible without reciprocity, generosity and collective collaboration!

Returning to Mutual Reciprocity

Our mission is returning maternal health to women; protecting, preserving and restoring birth knowledge, understanding, wisdom and skills to our hearts and hands; cultivating intergenerational, multicultural, interspecies community and collective care; restoring soils, food systems and local self-reliance; and training the next generations who will carry this forward.

WellMama is growing into a regional and international hub and model, built through collaboration with other CICs, cooperatives and umbrella associations — all rooted in regenerative, life-affirming values and mutual reciprocity, across this region and beyond.

Gardd Mamau and Bryn y Blodau are places of beauty, belonging and bounty. offering sanctuary and seeds of hope that restore soil and soul, heart and health, longing and belonging.

I am grateful to serve as a grandmother in this community, tending Mother Earth, women, mothers and families, with the love of my heart and hands. May each of us be seeds of change in this time of transformation.. of the great turning... We hope you will join us on the path!

This season, we planted many heritage seeds, they are all growing strong and well. The harvest will be abundant this year... Looking ahead to 2027, we are preparing to work the land with the help of our ponies and a light cassine plough — a return to pre- and post-petroleum regenerative growing. The next generations of growers and pony handlers are being initiated at Bryn y Blodau this summer, to the delight of all!

Within our bioregion and beyond, we are remembering and restoring knowledge, skills, resources and relationships that sustain us through periods of disruption, change and transformation - sacred seeds from which life-affirming culture grows 💚🌱

Body, Birth & Beyond - September

The first Body, Birth & Beyond programme is now complete, and what a tender, intimate circle we shared...!❤️ As it was the first time for me hosting this new offering, it was also a "Birthing" for me, and I am honoured and grateful to have walked beside this constellation of mothers as they settled into their pregnancies and prepared for their births... I am resting and integrating all I gathered through the threshold, and gently preparing to host Body, Birth & Beyond again, for a new group of pregnant women, starting early September. If you're currently pregnant or trying to conceive, you can join our waiting list to stay up to date with free info calls and details about enrolment 👇🏼

Body, Birth & Beyond is a group programme for women who want to prepare for birth in community, guided by embodied wisdom and informed choice. A four-week journey moving through pregnancy, labour, birth, and postpartum — combining live weekly Zoom sessions of two hours each, online modules released weekly on Teachable, guided practices, and daily community conversation through a Telegram group. Includes a complimentary one-to-one session with Samara. This programme cultivates informed confidence, instinctual trust, and the conditions for a physiological birth. It is for women who are ready to return to their body and prepare for the threshold ahead, held in the warmth of a circle.

Here's what women said about being part of this circle:

"I really appreciated the feeling of sharing that happened in this group, that it's not just information or words, but it feels almost like sitting around a fire all together, and sharing wisdom from a different place! It's not such a mind-centred space, but a more heart and ancient-centred space, which felt really beautiful throughout our time together."

"Thank you for this beautiful intimate circle of life creation, for the deep open shares, honesty and sweet eyes, as we held each other in this short yet impactful journey 💗💓💗"

Other upcoming offerings:

Tending Birth ~ Tending Life women's retreat

We've decided to extend our commitment window until midnight on 14 July, after which we'll decide whether it's the right time to go ahead with this in-person gathering this September at Trefacwn (Pembrokeshire). This is to allow more time for conversations to unfold and to give women who feel called to join us the breathing room to make their decision without pressure.

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If you're curious, but missed the recent information Zoom call with Samara and Ruth, you can catch up with the recording here:

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/hSnglXseJpENi89QNoibuxJ4NR_bOliIvscKLhK41zSXGza3oLjMWNH4kzj8cL4Y.XPmRdweTGC-yiFka​

Passcode: t3z01Z8=

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And you can find all the details about this rare opportunity here on our event page.

The 13 Moons Journey: The waiting list is now open for our next cohort to begin this journey together in early 2027! Join the waiting list

🌺 Upcoming Study Spiral with Samara Hawthorn & Nicola Thompson:

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Becoming a Grandmother: Ancestral Continuum and the Rite of Elderhood

This coming Thursday, June 25th| 11am–2pm SAST / CET ​

You are invited to dip your toe into the warm and nourishing waters of True Midwifery by joining these monthly study spirals. These monthly gatherings are a safe space for birth keepers from around the world to gather, share, study, discuss and learn in a non judgemental and oxytocin rich space.

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​Click here, if you would you like to learn more about the upcoming Grandmothers' Circle with Samara, which will begin in September!

Traditional Indigenous Immersion

We're honoured to share with you another special opportunity that will be offered on our land this summer, August 27th-30th: This is a traditional immersion for women who want to learn from indigenous voices, to connect with their womb, to gather in sisterhood, who are conceiving or want to conceive, who want to receive guidance from the Huni Kuin women, Ayani and Maxi...

If you're interested, please write to tierranativa.hunikuin@gmail.com directly to receive full information about the content, schedule and exchange.

Essence ~ Movement Meditations

Our regular Wednesdays sessions are open to join anytime! On our Teachable course page you can also read more about the benefits of the Qi Gong, Tai Chi and Daoist meditation practices that Samara shares and the content of the weekly live sessions (Wednesdays at 9am UK time). ​If you're new to Essence, you're welcome to come for a free taster session! Simply enter your email address h​ere, and we'll send you the Zoom link for your first online session. ​​Looking forward to sharing with you this space of nourishment and profound healing from within! Join Essence

Samara also offers 1:1 coaching and mentoring sessions to mothers, families and birth keepers.

These can be sessions throughout the childbearing year from conception through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and closing of the bones as well as miscarriage and abortion support. She also offers couples' Shiatsu for birth preparation, integrative counselling and elemental constellation services. To book a session with her, follow this link, and specify what guidance you're looking for, or the time can be used to simply explore what's coming up for you!

A message from Tariqua 🧡

As we move towards the Summer Solstice, I find myself reflecting with deep gratitude on the journey I have shared with WellMama, and on the many beautiful people who have walked alongside us.

Although I am no longer actively involved in the day-to-day work of WellMama, I do not experience this as an ending. Like the seasons, life asks us to change shape, while the roots of relationship remain.

This season also marks the closing of Tending the Roots of Community: Creative Collective Care, the course a beautiful journey of shared learning, creativity, ritual, and connection. I am deeply grateful to all who helped weave this space into being.

Especially in these times, when division, racism, and separation can feel so visible, we are invited to make different choices. We are asked what kind of world we wish to nurture, what kind of communities we are growing, and how we might walk in deeper relationship with ourselves, and the living world. This asks for courage, generosity, and collective care.

On the 20th of June, Tariqua Rooted will gather in Glasgow for a day of connection, shared food, storytelling, creativity, music, rest, and community under the theme Tending the Roots of Community. It is an invitation to remember that nothing truly grows alone.

There will be workshops, shared food, storytelling around the fire, music and singing, crafts, quiet spaces for rest, and a Red Tent where whatever asks to be held can be met with gentleness and collective care.

The spaces created through Tariqua Rooted are rooted in decolonial and ancestral ways of gathering. They honour the many stories that live within these lands and within us, holding with particular care the journeys of people from the Black and Brown diaspora, while warmly welcoming allies who come with openness, humility, and a willingness to walk alongside us, to create and remember and materialize in these present days the worlds we all belong too. All of us have to do the work .

At the heart of this work is not a wish to become something new, but to remember something ancient. The earth has always taught us how to belong. Forests, rivers, seeds, winds, rain, and the turning of the seasons remind us that nothing truly grows alone.

Come as you are. Bring your whole story. The land has room for you, and together we can remember how to belong. Please keep an eye out for future gatherings, workshops, courses, and opportunities to connect.
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www.tariquarooted.org info@tariquarooted.org

insta: @tariquarooted @tending_roots_of_community

With love,

Samara, Tariqua & The WellMama Collective

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Tending a Hearth of Maternal Health and Wellbeing

With Heart and Hands