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The Kingdom's Mystical Origins

I have been asked time and again: How and when did Harmony Kingdom begin? What was the actual moment of conception? Of course, most of the details came along much later, but the idea to make quirky Netsuke style boxes happened like this. . .

Let me tell you a story.

In October, 1990, I was on one of my periodic wanderings into the wilderness, in this case, the Indian/Tibetan border high in the Himalayas (suddenly I'm worried that this is all going to sound beyond any reasonable expectation of credibility, but I'll continue anyway). I remember being in a not very nice frame of mind. It had been raining hard for several days, which it shouldn't have been in October. The altitude was bothering me, which it didn't normally, and the immediate landscape seemed unreasonably savage and inhospitable. With the wind peeling my skin, I was somewhere above 16,000 feet, searching for an 18,000 foot pass which kept eluding me. I felt as if I were lost and alone, on a strange planet in a storm, and I wanted to be at home with my family.

I suddenly became aware of a sort of rumbling roar above, getting louder, like rolling thunder. Without even realizing how little time I had, I flattened myself against a small rock face just ahead of me and within seconds, the roar had become a deafening blast as, it seemed, the whole side of the mountain fell down around me. I have never felt such terror, or such an adrenaline surge. Rocks the size of houses, rock the size of oil tankers, were bouncing past me and over me and disappearing into the mists below, traveling at incredible unstoppable speeds. I felt pretty sure, just as a man whose parachute fails to open, that in a minute I would be dead.

But nothing hit me. The rock fall probably lasted only fifteen seconds. I squatted down on my haunches and shook uncontrollably for some little time, and then it was as if the whole world was created anew. It stopped raining, the wind dropped, the clouds parted and the sun's warmth touched my face. I became aware of a reflection, dazzling me even as I moved my hear all around. It was coming from a spot about fifty feet below. I climbed down to it, still shaking, and picked up a crystal about the size of an egg. It occurred to me straight away that I was linked to this crystal. It had been locked inside this mountain for millions of years and now it had been released. I was the first person to touch it or see it, and the first ray of light that touched it also touched me.

I have to tell you, true or not, that I believe my luck changed at that very moment. While it may be easy to invest objects with magical properties, I can only say that the rest of the trip was a joy. A day after the rock fall, it came into my mind that a range of whimsical miniature boxes might be the way forward for my quiet business. Of course, what really created Harmony Kingdom were chance meetings, first between myself and Peter Calvesbert and then between myself and Noel Wiggins. Never could it be more true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I still have the crystal and am very protective of it. Few people have ever seen it and fewer still have ever touched it. Though it sounds foolishly romantic, I believe "our" crystal is at the very heart of Harmony Kingdom.

– Martin Perry