HRH Prince Charles - Mind the Harmony

Did you see "Harmony" this past Friday night on NBC?  If you did, would you recommend it to friends?  Would you like to see it again?  Would you like to know more?

And if you didn't, would you be interested?  Hey!  You're in luck!

Here's a link to the NBC website, where you can see the whole thing for free.  Also: a link to the website for the program, and the book that goes with it.  I thought "Harmony" was lovely, and contrary to the NYTimes review, I don't think the Prince was too posh sounding to get his message across.  In fact, he was disarmingly earnest and the strength, depth, and longevity of his commitment to the environment and environmental issues is impressive and persuasive.  In fact, there is more to this short and moving movie (43 minutes long) than just the Prince.  It's a wonderful illustration of why many kinds of people should care, and how they can work together in their own best interests.

Here also, is a link to the Guardian UK's review of the program.  It is a great example of critical thinking, if you feel you need some guidance in sorting out how you feel or want to think about the environment and "tree huggers" like Prince Charles.  I don't think any of us is pure, or has all the answers, and it is "cool" in our culture today, (and valid!), for people to point out failings or outright "kookiness" in the some of the Prince's thinking.  Kooky ideas aside, and taking into account my own experiences of the natural world, I think it would be hard to argue with his conviction that we have a pressing responsibility to ourselves and those who come after us, to truly CARE for this wonderful asset that we call Mother Earth.  And a responsibility to challenge attitudes that insist that it is not very cool to "mind awfully" as the Prince does, about these things.

The picture comes from a (St. Martin's Press, 2000) book called "Highgrove", a history in pictures of the organic garden that the Prince has grown on his Gloucestershire estate since 1980.  The photo above is of the Terrace Garden and Thyme Walk.  (Photos taken by Andrew Lawson and Christopher Simon Sykes but no attribution for individual photos given).  If you are not an environmentalist already, starting your own garden, or visiting this one might just turn you into one!  The garden is open to the public during the summer months.  Here is a link for that.

I want to get there very soon because now that William is getting married Highgrove might pass on to him and become a very different place.  A garden is such a personal reflection of its owner that it rarely endures beyond the time when that gardener has to move on, for whatever reasons.  

I think it's a gorgeous garden and the Prince is a wonderful example to us all.  And you?  Any thoughts?