For every worry
or hurt that chews at your mind,
think of one thing you’re grateful for, however small.
One by one, fill your mind with them. Let them
crowd out the worry and the hurt.
Keep moving.
For every worry
or hurt that chews at your mind,
think of one thing you’re grateful for, however small.
One by one, fill your mind with them. Let them
crowd out the worry and the hurt.
Keep moving.
Born fatherless, never knew my father.
My mother worked. She didn’t have no way of
keeping me going to school. We don’t have
education, we have inspiration. If I was
educated, I would be a damn fool.
Me don’t have no prejudice about myself.
Why me don’t have no prejudice about myself?
My father was white, my mother black. You know,
dem call me half-caste, or whatever. Well, me don’t
be upon nobody’s side. Me don’t be upon black mon’s side
nor white man’s side but upon God’s side, de mon
who create me, who cause me to come
from black and white.
Reggae music is the the people’s music, reggae music is news.
It’s news about your own self, your own history, things that
they wouldn’t teach you in a school. Reggae music is a
music created by Rasta people. And it carry earth
force, a people rhythm, earth people. You know,
there’s a rhythm of people working,
people moving.
Dreads of the world suffer.
Masses of the people suffer.
And dis music come from the
masses of the people.
Why one race want to be rich and the other one poor?
Why one want to fight on the other? It’s no more of that.
The youth of today say no, that cannot work no more.
How long have I been a Rastafarian?
I am a Rastamon, you know, I stand Rasta.
To say how long is like, again, I say, from Creation,
if you can overstand it that way. Because y’all like
to say 15 years, 10 years, it’s not really so.
It’s from Creation.
The only law which is law is the law of life,
the law of how to live. Me don’t want to get
involved in talking like me is a politician.
Me just want to talk about righteousness.
Jah is Earth’s rightful ruler.
I don’t come to bow, you know, I come to conquer.
I don’t come to bow, I come to conquer.
My home is always where I am. My home is in my head.
My home is what I think about, how I try to settle my mind.
That is my home. My home is not in the material world but there.
I don’t really have no ambition, you know.
I only have one thing I’d really like to see happen.
I’d like to see mankind live together — black, white,
shiny, anyone, you know what I mean? That’s all.
We are revolutionaries.
Me see myself as a revolutionary,
who don’t have no help, nor take no bribe
from no one, but fight it single
handed, with music.
My life is important to me,
but all people life is important.
My life is only important if me can
help plenty people. If my life is just for
me, my own security, then me no want it.
My life is for people. That’s the way me is.
I say to the people that they have a voice inside of
them that talk to them, you know. That is the voice
that people must listen to. Because in everything
that you go and do, there is a wrong way and a
right way. And if you listen good, you will
know the right way. You know? Because
there is a voice inside talkin’ to
everyone. Seen? Seen.
Rory James Andrew Young
21 May 1972 Lusaka, Zambia
26 April 2021 Fada N’gourma, Burkina Faso
🐆
As good a man
as I have ever known or am likely to
is being laid to rest by his close family and friends
today in the Netherlands. Please send
them all a tray of light.
🐘
Prayers for the dead
are on the same footing as gifts for the living.
The angel goes in to the dead with a tray of light, bearing a cloth of light,
and says, ‘This is a gift for you from your brother so-and-so,
from your relative so-and-so.” And he delights in
it just as a living man rejoices
in a gift.
Ibn al -Ghazali
🕊
please donate to the Rory Young Family Memorial Fund
In your light
I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do, and that sight
becomes this art.
My friend and hero
Rory Young was killed on 26 April 2021
in an ambush while leading a wildlife protection
patrol in Arly National Park, Burkina Faso.
Rory was a wildlife expert,
professional guide —
— and for many years
an anti-poaching ranger training
other rangers and leading
patrols across Africa.
A man of colossal ability,
wit, integrity, and drive, Rory Young
risked his life daily in defending the creatures he
revered. In the years since terrorists have turned to
poaching as a source of operating revenue, he engaged
in regular gun battles with armed poachers
and was a target of multiple attacks
and ambushes.
His selfless work,
done over decades, could not
have been more dangerous,
nor more heart-rending.
Rory leaves at home a wife and
two children whom he
loved mightily.
Please make a donation to the
Rory Young Family Memorial Fund and if possible to
Chengeta Wildlife, which Rory co-founded
and led as CEO.
Rest in peace, lion.
🕊