April 16, 2020

You're celebrating your favorite holiday or a special event in the year 2020. What holiday or event is it, and how is it powered?
What new energy source is fueling your festivities?


It's the Day of Silence. April 16th, 2020. A local school's LGBT group has asked for my help in organizing a special event for the day. I've already held an assembly with the group at the school, educating the school on the horrors of LGBT bullying, and how much progress has been made in the past 10 years.

But that's not all this day has.

I had reached out to this group before, and taught them about EVOKE and Alchemy - how it had changed my life and given me the drive to fight the injustice being held against LGBT people. I showed them along the way what other things I'd learned to care about.

The group had come up with the idea of marrying LGBT activism with other forms of social activism. They wanted to show their class mates that LGBT people were active, good-hearted people, innovators. So we worked out a plan.

Later that day, the group - and volunteers gathered from their friends and classmates - gathered together at the school's amphitheatre. Huddled together in a mass, every back faced the school's audience as they gathered in to watch what would happen. Every person had attached to them a small device that could capture the heat and energy from their body to store energy.

When the crowds had gathered and settled restlessly in the amphitheatre seats, it began: a dance, a sound so eloquent, and yet only from the sounds that these people could make with their voices, their hands, their feet. They turned, they stomped, they danced, they clapped, they sang, all in a choreographed display that had the observing students and faculty cheering and clapping along with them.

As the dance came to a close, the volunteers moved off to the side, still humming and clapping and stomping their feet in a soft rhythm. Smiling, I rolled out a table - on it was a stereo, a desktop computer, and a TV. Each had their plug hanging in front of them; there was no way they were connected to electricity. I demonstrate that each does not turn on, as the humming builds.

Three volunteers step up, and plug in their energy packs. Three pieces of equipment light up, turn on. Music shouts from the stereo; the computer screen flickers; the TV plays the local news. The audience is awed as I explain to them how this energy was able to power these appliances. Dancers form in the middle as I show how the energy each created could power so much more, adding on to bigger electronics each time.

Finally, I explain that the entire group could give enough electricity to an electricity-deprived community to power them for a month - just based on a five minute dance. The humming turns to shouts of joy, stomps, claps, and then silence.

"But," I say quietly, as the dancers turn to face the audience, "In order for these young people to empower others, you must empower them with your kindness, your understanding, and your love. You must help them become a part of a world that still possesses loathing and misunderstanding. You must help them have the confidence to have a voice, by speaking with them, singing with them, dancing with them. Will you?"

The roaring cheer from the audience, the smile on the faces of the dancers, tells me I've seen success.