Today we welcome the new moon in Gemini.
According to astrologer Chani Nicholas, Gemini is the “multifaceted storyteller of the zodiac.” Nicholas explains:
Holding on to nothing and channeling everything, Gemini’s information is constantly on the move. No version of the tale sticks for too long as breaking news is always incoming for these reporters.
Stories are a uniquely human province. Our minds can run wild with them. We can use stories to empower or defeat, to encourage or deflate, to elevate or detract.
What stories do you tell about yourself? What provides the material for your stories? Do your circumstances dictate the stories you tell, or do your stories emerge from the vividness of your imagination?
For today’s installment of Feel-Good Friday, here is a story that came into my path this week that forced me to consider the stories I have about certain roles, and how we relate to people.
A Serenading Sanitation Worker
What’s the story you usually have about the people who pick up your garbage?
This is one of many jobs in our culture often done in the shadows. When the sanitation workers do their jobs, we don’t think of it much; we notice only when they’re missing. We (society as a whole) don’t generally afford them the respect, recognition, and rewards that we give to people in other industries.
Their title is sanitation worker, although we often call them garbage men.
We can transcend any role we play in life — whether it’s our job or a volunteer role or a family role — by telling a different story about that role.
Bruce Johnson is a sanitation worker in Ontario, California. While driving through the neighborhood on his sanitation route, Mr. Johnson spotted two high-school seniors outside taking graduation pictures. He stopped and serenaded them from his truck with a rendition of Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.”
He brought joy and tribute to two girls who have had the ceremony and rituals of their rite of passage stripped from them.
Johnson is not a “garbage man” who simply goes around to pick up trash and clean the streets. He is going out into his neighborhood and cleaning up the energy by spreading kindness and encouragement, sharing his heart with others.
Serving from the heart, he transcended his role, and transcends the story we tell about people like him and what they are capable of bringing to our world.
How can you transcend your role or circumstances? What’s a different story you can tell about who you are and what you do?
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...