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WOOD AND WATER

Wood and Water was founded by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams and Tony Padfield in 1979. Its particular concern was with sacred wells and groves (hence the title), but there was always a strong sub-theme of Goddess-centred and feminist spirituality.

In 1981, after ten issues, Hilary and Tony felt that they could no longer continue producing the magazine. It had developed a devoted readership by then, who wanted it to continue, and a small collective was formed to continue publication. Two of the members soon moved to another town, and the magazine continued under the editorship of myself and Jan Henning. We continued publication, for over eighty issues, until the end of 2003, when shortage of contributions and a reduction in the number of subscribers made us decide to stop.

The emphasis of the magazine changed when we became editors. Although we still had an interest in sacred wells, our main commitment was to Goddess spirituality, and the masthead carried the description “A Goddess-centred feminist-influenced pagan magazine.” We did not describe the magazine as feminist, partly because some of the material had no connection with feminism, but more because many feminist women felt that men could not be feminist though they could be supportive of feminism, and we did not want to take a stand on this issue.

There were other British magazines devoted to Goddess spirituality and women's spirituality, notably From the Flames, Arachne and Panakeia, but they were not as long-lasting as Wood and Water. Goddess Alive first came out in 2002, much later than the other magazines referred to. It continued until 2016, so was almost as long-lived as Wood and Water. Almost all its material was Goddess-related, and it was particularly notable for its colour photos of places and objects. Many of its articles, and a useful set of links, are still available on the web site.

We published articles by people committed to the Goddess movement, such as Asphodel Long, Monica Sjoo, and Jill Smith, as well as many others. We had some excellent poets writing for us, and made a point of long and detailed book reviews.

A while ago we digitised Wood and Water (though the quality is not brilliant, all the material should be readable) and the links to the issues are given below. All writings and drawings are copyright by their creators, and each issue of Volume 1 is copyright by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams and each issue of Volume 2 is copyright by Daniel Cohen and Jan Henning. However, each complete issue of Volume 2 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. .