in memoriam: rory james andrew young

 

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 

was killed on this date five years ago. Please

read about his monumental life,

and please send him 

your love.

 

 
Man is as poor as he is, as limited as he is, as troubled as he is; yet there is nothing in this world which could not be accomplished by man if he only knew what thought can do. It is ignorance which keeps a person from what they ought to accomplish. One should know how to operate his thought, how to accomplish certain things, how to focus the mind on the object that should be accomplished. If one does not know, then he has not made use of his mind but has lived like a machine.
 
If people knew the power of feeling, and realized that the power of feeling can reach anywhere and penetrate anything, they could achieve whatever they might wish…Every person is a captive in some form or other; one’s life is limited in some form or other; but one could get above this limitation by realizing the latent power and inspiration of the soul.

 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

 

 

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 family of rory young


 

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 Wildlifewhich Rory co-founded

and led as CEO.

 

Rest in peace, lion.

🕊