Welcome to The Dispatch, a new column by Derek C. Blasberg featuring a mix of interviews and reports from the front rows of the worlds of culture, art, and fashion. I was born in Missouri, which is affectionately known as the “Show-Me” state. Such Midwestern skepticism has its origins in a banquet speech from the late 1800s delivered by a congressman who decried eloquence and demanded proof. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been incredulous about ephemeral rituals like crystal healing, saging, and, yes, even the zodiac. You’re going to base your whole life around the way some stars millions of light-years away were aligned the day you were born? Really? Yet I’m such a big fan of Cleo Wade, the author and poet, and Nicole Richie, the actress and reality icon, that I found myself traveling to L.A. earlier this fall for Virgo Fest, which is how the duo refer to the annual dance party they throw to celebrate their September birthdays. I may not have known my star sign until I moved to New York when I was 18 (turns out I’m a Taurus), and I still readily judge people who let their horoscope influence their decisions, but 24 hours after Cleo and Nicole’s gathering, I was convinced of one thing: Virgos know how to party.
CLEO picked me up at a friend’s house in a PARTY BUS, a TEQUILA SHOT in HAND. Cleo picked me up at a friend’s house in a party bus, a tequila shot in hand. It was already bumping with a mix of old pals of hers from when she was growing up in New Orleans and new ones she has made working with the Democratic Party on voting initiatives. We drove to a club in West Hollywood where the dance floor was hot from the second we walked in. Classic ’90s hip-hop was on the speakers, and an endless stream of grilled cheeses came out of the kitchen. And what a crew: Only Cleo and Nicole could bring together senior members of the DNC’s strategy team with Paris Hilton, Natasha Lyonne, and Beyoncé’s stylist Shiona Turini around a single table—with bottle service.
“Virgo Fest is a dance party to celebrate not only us but all Virgos,” Nicole explained when I asked for a definition of the unofficial festival. “Everyone is invited, but the Virgos at the party usually get something special, like a headband, so the other guests can go up to them and congratulate them on being part of such a perfect group of humans.” Added Cleo, “We basically take all of the energy we spend all year not going to clubs and put it into one club night when we dance from 9:00 p.m. until 1:30 a.m.”—which is the wee hours for a couple of West Coast moms like her and Nicole—“and then we go home and we recap in the morning.”
The earliest picture of Cleo on my iPhone is from 2012. We’re squeezed together on a balcony at a surprise Lil’ Kim performance for the 10th anniversary of New York fashion emporium Opening Ceremony. At that moment, I could not have guessed that a dozen years later she’d be not only my zodiac whisperer but also a friend I’d turn to often for wise counsel. At one point at Virgo Fest, I found her in the crowd spinning in a Rodarte dress and observed her celestial quality. “The FIRST thing you NEED to KNOW about BEING HEARD,” Cleo pronounces, “is that you have to be a GOOD LISTENER.”
Of course, I’m not the first person to seek out Cleo for inspo. She is a New York Times best-selling author who has published four books of poetry and prose—her most recent, Remember Love, came out last year—along with two kids’ books, including her latest, May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes for Your Life. Cleo’s uplifting messages advocate for empathy, self-care, and reflection—inscribed in her trademark handwritten font—and have been quoted and reposted by everyone from Michelle Obama to Reese Witherspoon and Britney Spears.
A couple of days after Virgo Fest, Cleo and I go for a hike (hello, this is L.A.!) to talk about an idea related to the theme of this issue: what it means to have a voice. “The first thing you need to know about being heard is that you have to be a good listener,” Cleo pronounces. Maybe I’m still hungover, but this notion stops me in my tracks. A powerful voice comes from listening intently? Then I remember the “Are You OK?” booth that Cleo hosted in New York before the pandemic, which simply offered a space for people to talk without any prescribed motive or agenda.
Cleo cites the time Gloria Steinem was asked how to encourage young women to use their voices. “Her response was ‘The first way a person knows they have a voice is by having a listener,’?” Cleo says. “For so many who are wondering, ‘How do we cultivate that?’ or when you sit in reflection on why it might be hard for you to speak up in any way, a lot of the pain of our silence comes from not having a community that prioritizes hearing us and listening to us as a function of loving us.”
Nicole backs up her fellow Virgo. “I like to practice taking a pause, which can sound like the opposite of using my voice, but it is not,” she says later. “I want to be someone who stands behind her words. We live in a time of hot takes, social media, and feeling like we need to talk to fill the space and to keep people interested. It’s extremely powerful to know when your voice is needed. To pause and ask yourself if your words will be clear, that is using your voice in the best way.”
With all the noise and division around the presidential election this year, Cleo finds more people asking for advice on how to speak to one another. It’s not easy to turn off negativity or exist in the face of conflicting beliefs or opinions. In 2018, Cleo was canvassing with the late congressman and civil-rights icon John Lewis, who died in 2020, and that concept came up. “When he encountered people at peak racism—people fighting to keep schools segregated and lunch counters segregated—he said if a racist was spitting on him or cursing at him, he’d always imagine them as a baby,” she recalls. “He’d say, ‘I wonder what happened for them to get from this innocent, love-filled place to this place of hurt?’ Then he’d have so much grace and wrap their life in prayer for how they got there. Sometimes we’re in so much of our own pain and trauma, we don’t know how to create that step, but I do think it’s critical for any type of collective belonging in our country.” It was an experience that resonated deeply with Cleo, who grew up in an environment where she didn’t always feel comfortable using her voice. “New Orleans is a beautiful place, but it’s also in the center of Louisiana, which has a lot of pretty high-key racism,” she says. “In my life, there were a lot of times I felt I didn’t know how to speak up or it wouldn’t be safe for me to speak up as the only Black woman in an all-white space. I think the silence—and the sadness around the silence—is something I found a way to turn into something else, to turn into a motivation for speaking up,” she explains. “Every time I write—it could be five words—I get scared when I press Send. It never really gets easier to put yourself out there because it is a part of you.”
Nicole says conversations with Cleo are comforting because it’s like talking to family. “She is the friend who encourages her loved ones to take a beat and to feel,” she offers. “She has the ability to speak to people with a sense of softness that allows the people around her to be vulnerable and feel safe. But don’t let the tender volume fool you. She also is someone who will not let you get off the phone in less than 20 minutes while she works out all of her thoughts. For someone so soft-spoken, she sure has a lot to say! There are two people who I know when I call them, I’m in for a long ride: my mom and Cleo.”
At the end of our hike, I reiterate my skepticism of the zodiac. I’m a Missourian, so show me. “You know that song ‘Can You Feel It’??” Cleo asks, summoning the Jacksons. “Everyone’s chasing a feeling. And feelings are connected, invisible things.” Another example: You can’t see humor, but you know it’s there because we’re laughing. “If you can’t laugh, you’ll never survive. It’s a survival tool. If you can’t find and know and feel that joy belongs to you, no matter what’s going on, it’s impossible to get through life.”
So the point of Virgo Fest wasn’t to convert me into a chart-reading soothsayer? “When Nicole and I talk about Virgo Fest, people think that there’s much more going on than there is. But it’s really just a feeling,” Cleo says. “There are obviously a lot of problems in the world, but if you can’t find joy somewhere, you have a bigger problem than public policy, and it’s closer to home.” I’m not getting a Taurus tattoo anytime soon, but I leave seduced by the idea that doing things that feel good, like throwing dance parties or believing in your connection to the larger universe, contribute to goodwill. “If you want to have helping hands, then you have to be what is helpful,” Cleo says, officially rejecting Missouri’s unofficial state motto. “The power is in this land of the invisible, and it’s in the land of what we feel.”
