this is no time for timid hearts (new audio poetry + spanish text)

Since I first wrote this piece in 2010, it has reappeared here numerous times — and every time I felt was THE PERFECT TIME to share the message. Today is no exception. The audio is fresh and new; text appears in English, followed by text in Spanish (as translated by Rose Mary Boehm of Lima, Peru). As I have done in the past, I am again featuring an image of St. Joan of Arc with this piece. Perhaps her most memorable utterance: “I am not afraid…I was born to do this.”

This is no time for timid hearts
For holding back your most precious gifts in the face of fear of retribution
For wedging yourself into a doorway while you wonder 
if you are worthy of entrance
For sitting interminably on a fence whose only purpose is
to separate you from your very self
This is no time

This is no time to utter whatever from a place of rarefied observation
To be carried along buoyed by neither aim nor intention
To let life live you blithely while you relinquish your birthright of free will
To sanction guilt and obligation as they hold sway
over your most fervent desires,
This is no time

This is no time for equivocation, for hedging and backsliding
For whimpering and decrying all that you have created
For playing victim to predators of any stripe, be they real or illusory
For abdicating personal responsibility in the face of a 
preponderance of evidence,
If ever there was a time, it is not now

For forthright declaration of your deepest truths
This is the time
For standing your ground for causes that bear the mantle of justice
This is the time
For fostering unadulterated freedom that rings out
above the screech of politics and posturing,
For inaugurating new byways of sustainable evolution
by lifting one hand after another
For redeeming without hesitation the wonderful
that you believed was gone forever
This, right now, is the time

This is not the time to take the bait of vulturous fearmongers
To withhold the emanations of your frangible heart
To stockpile the succulent flowerings of your soul
To hurl at others the boomerang of judgment or culpability
(lest it return to its rightful owner)
This is not the time

If you have ever yearned to unleash your passions
Ached to be exponentially more than you have dared to be
Hungered for a greater humanity within and without
Longed for connection that defies the so-called bounds
of time and space
And have known for eternity that you were born to be Love,

Today
Right now
This is the time.

No es el momento para los corazones tímidos

No es el momento para los corazones tímidos,
Para retener tus obsequios más preciosos
enfrente del miedo a las represalias,
Atascándote en un umbral mientras te preguntas si eres digno de entrar,
Sentándote interminablemente en una valla cuyo único propósito
es separarte de tu propio ser
No es el momento.

No es el momento de pronunciar cualquier cosa desde
un lugar de observación enrarecido,
O para dejarte llevar, impulsado por ni objetivo ni intención,
Para permitir que la vida viva por ti alegremente mientras tú renuncias
a tu patrimonio del libre albedrío,
Para aprobar culpa y obligación mientras dominan
tus deseos más fervientes,
No es el momento.

No es el momento para equivocaciones, cobertura y apostasía,
Para lloriquear, y denunciar todo lo que has creado,
Para pretender de ser víctima de cualquier depredador,
ya sea real o ilusorio,
Para abdicar a la responsabilidad personal frente
a una preponderancia de evidencia,
Si alguna vez hubo un tiempo, no es ahora.

Para la franca declaración de tus verdades más profundas,
Este es el momento.
Para mantenerte firme para defender causas justas,
Este es el momento.
Para el fomento de la libertad pura que resuena
por encima del chirrido de la política y posturas,
Para inaugurar nuevos caminos de evolución sostenible,
levantando una mano tras otra,
Para redimir sin vacilar la maravilla que creías haber perdido para siempre,
Esto, ahora, es el momento.

No es el momento para tragar el anzuelo de los buitres que trafican con el miedo,
Para retener las emanaciones de tu frágil corazón,
Para almacenar las floraciones suculentas de tu alma,
Para lanzar el bumerán del juicio o de la culpabilidad a los demás
Por si vuelva a su legítimo propietario,
Este no es el momento.

Si alguna vez has añorado desatar tus pasiones,
Sentiste ansia por ser exponencialmente más
de lo que te has atrevido ser,
Tenías hambre por una humanidad mejor, dentro y fuera,
Anhelabas una conexión que desafíe
los llamados límites de tiempo y espacio,
Y si has sabido para toda la eternidad
que habías nacido para ser el Amor,

Hoy,
Ahora mismo,
Es el momento.

(Translation by Rose Mary Boehm of Lima, Peru)