By Antonia Hitchens, Illustration: João Fazenda, The New Yorker, February 20, 2023
Late last month, the Biden Administration announced that the U.S. would send thirty-one M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile, in New York, a Ukrainian delegation, including a representative of the Territorial Defense Forces, had gathered to consider other types of aid. The goal, according to an ad for the event, was to promote “the psychological and spiritual resilience of Ukrainian people living in trauma, crisis, and war.” One possible avenue for healing? Psychedelics.
The delegation met at a studio in Chelsea run by a Polish artist named Agnieszka Pilat. She paints with the aid of mobile robots on loan from Boston Dynamics; a yellow robot that resembled a dog pattered around the space as the audience arrived. One of the panelists, Dr. Laura Vanderberg, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, chatted with her friend Leah Drew, a healer and “mind-set mentor” based in Colorado, who specializes in trauma. “For Ukraine, it’s no longer about body armor,” Vanderberg said. “It’s about thriving.”
“We have this idea that war is super depressing, super ugly,” Drew, who wore a bright-magenta jumpsuit, said. “But it can be empowering. There’s positivity in trauma. They’re trying to be present.”
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