Adolescence and Matrescence: Seasons of the Witch

Myths, fairy tales, archetypes, and legends have shaped cultural and historical understandings of the figure of the witch. Adolescence (the physical and psychological transitional period between childhood and adulthood) and matrescence (the changes that occur when becoming a mother) are both stages when affinities with witchcraft can come to the fore. In her book on Feminist Afterlives of the Witch, Brydie Kosmina claims that ‘girlhood is as maligned as motherhood, and has been seen as a time of the inculcation of patriarchal values, while also being cast as a figure of heteronormative reproduction’ (252). This chapter considers how seismic shifts in identity and embodiment invite engagement with rituals, performative practice and feminist praxis through witchcraft as a means of creatively coping with precarity and change around death, rebirth and the future. Through critical theory exploring witches as mothers (Kosmina) and adolescent females (Corcoran) alongside of performance as/and ritual, I argue that adolescence and matrescence can be considered ‘seasons of the witch’ and provide opportunity for understanding transformation through ritual, community and feminist lineage.