“Who’s got her flower essence glasses on?” I playfully asked myself as the plane landed in the Czech Republic last April. In that moment, I felt the country’s Peach theme. Of course, my mind questioned that one could know a theme essence so quickly, but I’ve learned over decades to push that doubt out of the way. Instead, I explored the insight that revealed itself to me.

One funny point that I was to experience with my gracious host, Pavel’s, excellent translations: that Czech sentences tend to drift upward in their ending intonations. Repeatedly, I couldn’t tell that he was done interpreting! I would pause, waiting for him to continue when he was in fact finished, or sometimes begin my dialogue before he’d finished. This one issue seems to affirm the Peach theme, much like the mother asking her child, “Do you need anything?” “Can I help you?” “May I get you something?” It was as though the sentences themselves were questions by way of meeting the needs of her child-country trying to rebuild its identity in this fragile time of “psychic reconstruction.”

“This is not like America,” I thought, “a Spinach country with its newness and childlike qualities, but a soft energy like a young mother, or a pre-adolescent child flexing its will-muscles, not yet in the more developed stage of outright rebellion.” The country felt somewhat like an abused child, having survived the virtual flattening of the human will power though the socialism of communistic darkness.

Although I’m not a political person by nature, I believe that communism is a spiritual poison. As mentioned, it pulverizes the human will, epitomized by Tomato Essence, which is perhaps the most important element in our growth toward inner freedom. Many stories on this first visit were conveyed to me: of people building their own homes who used their work hours to either sleep, steal supplies, or both; of people in high positions told they could keep their jobs all their lives but that their jobs would never get any better or more interesting; of people who emigrated, knowing that their families left behind would be punished by having any advancements in vacations or amenities delayed or withheld for perhaps decades.

And then there’s the Czech Republic’s pivotal plot need for Peach Essence which, as The Essential Flower Essence Handbook  explains, creates a complex, ambiguous, and paradoxical personality. Communism seems to so disfigure and squash the human will that people either become saints of compassion, or monsters driven by greed.  For the lower classes with no possibility of advancement, why bother? And for the higher classes who can amass more worldly goods with seemingly small consequences, why not? Bribery, amorality, and ruthless greed are the dour fruits of this heartless, spiritless system of communism, and the express plot-need for Peach Essence.

The country feels new, fresh, and also somewhat fragile, like a child emerging from abuse. Think of holding a ripe peach, placing the soft, fuzziness of the peach skin against your cheek. The food itself is a balm to the intestines and thus symbolic of our ability to process information and feelings.

Indeed, communism is a form of spiritual abuse. Its trees in this world have produced only fruits of darkness.

The Czech Republic is still emerging from the Revolution that transpired mere decades ago. In part, its healing is like a pendulum swing: from repression to the earlier stages of rebellion. Theirs is a rebellion against authority, against rules, against too much order. Even in my seminar, people requested their seating in a circle formation where, as one student wrote in her evaluation, they could smile at each other, instead of being “forced” to sit facing forward toward the teacher—yet another statement  against outwardly defined rules.

“Too many rules kill the spirit.” This is but one of the many mottos of the community of Ananda where I’ve lived for nearly 36 years. The polar opposite of communism, it honors the human will, so necessary for our spiritual growth and peace of mind. But just like the fragrant orange blossom when crushed exudes an intense aroma of divinity, the human spirit is ultimately indomitable.

May the good people of the Czech Republic, a country often called “the heart of Europe,” find their way in this world, through the embracing, caring nature of their country’s theme essence of Peach.