by Ophir Haberer

Audio read by author

Dear future one, 
carrier of a lineage 
that I currently feed deep courage and love
into protecting and healing, 

I write to you in a grave moment in human history. 
Our people have transgressed an embarrassing amount: 
So much destruction to life and human dignity everywhere.

And yet. chaos and destruction 
always lead to richer soil and new life, 

and the consciousness that is evolving in 
this moment, dear descendant, 
is unlike any stream of light this world has ever known—

in response to a darkness unlike this world has ever known. 

I pray that you read this letter 
in a beautiful meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, 
a Shire your great grandfather always dreamed of, 
sipping on a cup of freshly picked mint tea, in the way of your Moroccan ancestors, 
grown in a soil, tended in balance, in reverence.

I hope that salmon have found their way home, 
and people have found belonging in their bodies
and the land they inhabit;
returning to a right relationship, resembling
the sweet communion between a flower and a honeybee.

Oceans are no longer filled with plastic;
concepts of economic growth and consumerism and 
other anthropocentric bullshit are
no longer relevant. 

You live, dear one, as part of a village of initiated elders, 
and they guide your listening to the depths of the inner soul’s chambers 
And, of course, the greater soul all around you. 
 
The trauma I carry in my body, 
inherited from so many of your ancestors, 
no longer finds home in your liberated body. 

Every day for you, I pray, is another magical dance
between all the elements, 
and you my dear, 
acknowledge the magic your ancestors and their 
allied kin had to create
to throw the corrupted ring of capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, 
into the a lava strong enough
to dissolve even the subtleties, 
so those too 
no longer live in your body. 

My prayer is no matter what the reality may be
you carry the resilience
and permission
to safeguard
the bold dream
seeded in your heart.

Audio version of biography 

Ophir Haberer (32) is a Jerusalem-born consultant, community builder, event organizer, facilitator of retreats & mens’ work, a culinary storyteller & (w)holistic chef, developing Esalen massage practitioner, and a Earth-based Judaism and rites-of-passage educator. He has been working with Shalom Bayit, the Bay Area Jewish center for domestic abuse, Moishe House, and Wilderness Torah, center for Earth-based Judaism. He is currently publishing The Essence Underneath, his debut as a poet, published author & illustrator. He lives in California as part of Canticle Farm, a multi- racial, multi-generational restorative justice intentional community in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, where he also enjoys gardening and homesteading projects. Beforehand, he has lived, studied, or worked in various communities in the USA and abroad. 

He grew up in both St. Louis, Missouri and Kibbutz Tzora, a socialist farming community, in Israel. His grandparents come from Morocco and South Africa.