Goth Shakira’s Ins and (Far) Outs

From the time of the ancients to the era of TikTok distance Reiki healers, headwear has been donned to protect the energetic gate of the crown chakra. This KASK helmet takes it one (or two, or more) steps further by also guarding against threats of the material-plane persuasion. The north node’s position in the fixed sign of Taurus ensures that mass consciousness will continue to look toward communion with nature as a spiritual practice. As the board-bound hermit scales the snowy mountain in their pursuit of enlightenment, take comfort in the knowledge that a nasty spill down a foreboding incline of packed powder shall pose no threat to that vulnerable, fleshy-pink computer just south of the crown chakra. Point is, just as it’s cool to still wear a mask indoors because anonymity is chic (Pluto in Capricorn) and so is caring about the survival of others, it’s also cool to wear a helmet now. In these times of constant biological and psychic threat, protective headgear shows you have something to live for.

Speaking of brains, much discourse has emerged in the two-point-five-dimensional cyber realm around the concept of cerebral smoothness. “No thoughts, head empty” as typed by Gel-X™ nail extensions bathed in a soft blue-light glow and disillusioned by the constant intellectual engagement that Saturn’s ingress into Aquarius has demanded of our crisis coping skills. Understandably, “smooth brain” has been critiqued for its privileged lack of engagement with axes of oppression that marginalized communities are not able to simply disassociate from. So I propose a (perhaps less problematic, perhaps more problematic) alternative—wavy brain. Wavy brain does not mean that we stop thinking about Everything Going On® altogether, for that would be irresponsible. It does, however, mean that we have worn pathways in our brains through the act of continuously cognitively processing these developments over an extended period of time. The result is that criticality passes as peacefully (and as ominously) as a crinkled plastic bottle drifting soundlessly off the tropical beach of a four-star resort populated by digital marketing professionals listening to anxiety relief binaural beats in an attempt to relax enough to actually enjoy their six-point-five business days of PTO. They understand that they are part of a problem, or of several problems. They are doing their best to not be. But they are still fucking it up, somehow. And besides, professionalism is a racist, classist construct. And also, the Martine Rose blue and red small “Totally Unprofessional” wallet tote that your copy of The Coming Insurrection is buried inside costs more than the person serving you poolside makes in a week.

Pluto, the slowest-moving planet, takes 12 to 30 years to move through a single sign (in contrast to, say, the moon, which completes its cycle through one sign in a mere 48 hours). In March 2023, Pluto is poised to enter Aquarius, the sign associated with rapid innovation and technological change. As these energies dialogue with a productive tension, we are sure to witness radical upheavals of a technological persuasion (see: Elon’s Twitter purge). Pluto is in its last degrees of Capricorn, and so we already see harbingers of collective-powered shifts to come—user backlash against Meta’s draconian shadowbanning and AI-piloted censorship on Instagram, a movement to less punitive platforms like Discord, and a serious exploration of techno-anarchy in the age of DAOs. And what says “you don’t own me (although your Silicon Valley neurologist-facilitated psyop may have altered my attention span beyond all repair)” more than this slithery VETEMENTS green “Cyber Jumpsuit”? Who knows, maybe the villainous technocrat robot you’ll be hacking as an act of anarchic subversion during the cyber uprising of 2037 will pledge to forever change its nefarious ways because it, like, totally wants to borrow your outfit.

Ever since we found out mushrooms are the internet of the forest, nothing has been the same. Fungal fever is on the rise, and for good reason—what other eukaryotic organism can glow in the dark and turn ants into zombies? Uranus in a close conjunction with the north node in earthy Taurus has meant that visual conversations across creative industries have been conducted through their own “wood wide web” of organic inspirations, from the asymmetrical, fluid shapes of graphic and interior design trends to the technicolor happy-clashing of ready-to-wear offerings from Collina Strada and the like, to the fascinating, bulbous growths of nail artist Sojin Oh. Lockdowns forced us to go outside and explore to stay sane, and so, perhaps in the same way that a teenage girl (or 30-something downtown girl) might start to dress like her friends, we started dressing like butterflies and leaves. And mushrooms. Adorn your head with this Acne Studios purple shearling bucket hat and you’ll be the sweetest little fungus in your foraging group.

When Kandinsky titled a painting Soft Hard in 1927, could he have imagined that a century later male Playboi Carti fans would be painting their nails? Could he have predicted that women would one day be more educated than their male counterparts? That 63% of dating app users are men, and that self-supporting women setting emotional maturity and evolved communication skills as relationship nonnegotiables is requiring their male partners to invest significantly in their emotional and spiritual development so they don’t die alone? The last few decades—and especially the last two years—have brought about masculinity shifts of eclipse-like proportions. Karmic Saturn at home in the sign of Aquarius has activated the mainstream consciousness to progressively dismantle axes of gender- and sex-based oppression. Men in their 20s are actually going to therapy, initiating conversations about consent, and reading that copy of The Will to Change gifted to them three situationships ago. Now, it’s not enough to be monolithically hard—in fact, it’s gauche and passé. Acknowledging that toiling upon this mortal coil is hard enough on its own, “soft life” lifestyle content glorifies the receptive, passive, feminine-coded comfort of being in touch with your vulnerability. Genderfluid is not just an identity, but a visual language and a paradigm of thought. Binaries aren’t the tidily complementarian prescriptions that we’ve been led to believe. Integration and spectra are of the now, as are multihyphenate and multigenre everything. Like this MCQ black “Futuristic” jacket, you too can be soft and hard in forward-motion.

If we’re ranking apex predators on a scale of abhorrence, humans win by a tumultuous landslide. We’ve fumbled the proverbial bag so badly in so many ways when it comes to living harmoniously with our fellow species on this rotating rock, and the worst part is that we totally know it. From probes into transhumanism based on rebellion against those burdensome biological limitations that are an inescapable reality of our meat temples, to assisted death and even post- and anti-humanism, it’s clear that the only thing we hate more than our own planet is ourselves. Jupiter in Pisces in the latter portion of 2022 was tied to expansion, often into the murky depths of guilt, pity, and self-reflection. We felt remorse about how we treated our planet and each other. As Jupiter moves into Aries in 2023, the first sign of the zodiac and the foremost astrological symbol of initiation gives us permission to start anew. Perhaps it’s time to take ourselves off that pedestal made of microplastics and focus on what we can do for the fecund sphere that sustains our survival. The anthropocene era has never been more self-aware. Keep this Jil Sander silver dinosaur keychain close as a reminder of the exquisite impermanence of all species.

One of the most unsavory millennial tendencies is a tragically widespread allergy to growing up. On the one hand, it’s not difficult to pinpoint where the stubborn nihilism comes from—being manipulated into accruing obscene amounts of student debt only to eke out a meager existence in lower-middle management (if you’re lucky enough to actually have health insurance, that is) and listen to feeble self-development podcasts under the fluorescent baptism of overhead gym lights could boa-constrict the will to live out of anyone. The millennial generational placement of Pluto in Scorpio all but ensures a fixed predisposition towards withdrawal into misanthropy when things don’t work out as planned. No one understands you, right? The transiting south node in Scorpio is triggering a lot of these wounds. But the south node is about letting go of what no longer serves in order to integrate the past into a mindful contention with the present. There’s a fine line between valid disillusionment and the coping mechanisms that come along with it, and the irresponsibility of refusing to engage with the existential threats that have come with the territory of being human for millennia. Then again, our forebears never had to contend with the psychic torture that is algorithmically generated reminders that beautiful people are having fun without you. Might I propose an acceptance that things are only going to get worse and that might actually be a good thing? Let’s nurture our inner children by strapping on the THEM SKATES blue Clarks Originals edition “MOD. 909” rollerblades and finally accept that although we were conditioned for a world that no longer exists, adaptation to change is a necessary skill. Life is happening for us, not to us. “Adulting” is not a curse—it is liberation. And anyways, the only way out of a curse is through it. Get well soon, epic bacon pizza millennials and Disney adults.

It’s time for us to collectively acknowledge that Christmas is homophobic and pro-capitalist, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending the holidays alone or with chosen family doing whatever makes you feel good. The neoliberal supremacy of the biological family has explosively jettisoned us right into the middle of a hellscape wherein stress and overconsumption are deified under the guise of “holiday spirit.” For decolonization reasons Thanksgiving has been on its way out for a while now, so if we’re talking trend forecasting, we’re just about in the early adopter phase of abolishing Christmas. Neptune retrograding until just before the 2022 holiday season kicked into gear made reevaluations of spiritual rituals tantamount, and urged us to contend with our true desires for enlightenment. Chic! Celebrate your newfound escape from the gaudily lit megamall that is the American yuletide season with this IAAI SSENSE exclusive brown “Splatter” wreath. It looks like a Soviet brutalist and a viral slime TikToker merged bodies and took a shit as a chimera, and I mean this in the best possible way. Use it as a crystal grid for your rituals to ward off the generational trauma that inevitably rears its ugly head (the head biologically related to you that also has all of your features, unfortunately) this time of year. Or hang it on your door, if you’re freaky like that.

Hookup culture and “chill girl” lore have very unfortunately spawned a cohort of 30-somethings that are perpetually concerned with doing too much. As Saturn moves out of the cerebral, detached sign of Aquarius and into the depths of Pisces, we are sure to encounter a reckoning with all the ways we’ve disassociated from the depths of the human experience of love. So if you want to stay ahead of the curve, start getting in touch with the most illogical and impractical of your feelings surrounding love and relationships. In 2023, catching feelings is in. Tell your situationship you’re in love with them! Tell your partner “I love you” first! Swathe your platonic friendships in romance! Text paragraphs, write analog love notes, start a shared note in the Notes app with your crush where you drop little feelings for them throughout the day. Aloof, uncaring, and insensitive are absolutely and definitively out. Literally wear your heart on your sleeve with the Pristine SSENSE exclusive red “Love Me” pouch. We just lived the most collectively traumatic time in recent history, and as the great Western philosopher Nayvadius Wilburn said, we need love and affection. We need eight hugs a day to survive, and God knows only about 0.0001% of a generation riddled with depression and anxiety scientifically linked to the advent of widespread smartphone use in the early 2010s is actually getting that. Simp or (literally) die.

Goth Shakira is a Saturn-dominant digital director based in southern California.