When Nature Heals War: A Filmmaker’s View from the Ukraine–Hungary Border - My Short Stay in Hungary (With The Last of Us spoilers, believe it or not)

Hortobágy at dusk—the day’s training closed with a sky that felt like a long exhale.

Sunday Evening. I sit stunned, watching people scream and run from danger. I watch Joel take his final breath. For one hour, the second episode of The Last of Us has me gripping my couch.

I shouldn’t have watched something so intense right before bed. I have an early morning tomorrow. An important morning. 

A train to Salt Lake, three flights to get to Hungary, and, after a quick stop in Budapest to realign my brain schedule with the light of the East, a train further that way, towards the Ukraine border. To Hortobagyi National Park, where 30 Ukrainians (along with a handful of Hungarians, some Romanians, and a man from the Czech Republic) were engaged in a very valuable workshop.

Borderlands at blue hour—rails heading east as we talked about resilience and return.

Park directors, gardeners, biologists, and others engaged with the natural world were learning how to use nature, both in parks and indoor spaces, to help others in their communities find solace and healing. 

It's important work, for everyone and everywhere. That’s why I’m making a movie about it. But this is not that movie. This is a brief reflection about my personal experience. About what to tell my friends who ask when I return, “how was Ukraine?” About The Last of Us.

No, really. Lisa, a 23-year-old girl from Kyiv, and I were discussing the new season. She also thought Pedro Pascal was a dreamy piece of man. She had played the games and was preparing herself for what would happen to Joel. Since the Ukrainian release schedule is a week behind the United States, she tried to get me to deliver some info about how it all went down. I would not. Lisa was serving as a translator for the workshop and her English was excellent. For a while, I forgot that we were not sitting in America, that I would still have to answer to the many inquiries about how her people were.

The answer to the ‘how is Ukraine’ question is that I have no idea. I was in Hungary, and though I could see the Carpathian mountains on the horizon in the evening sunset, the two countries are in no way the same. And I can in no way, imagine some part of what Ukraine is like.

See, the problem in my thinking was highlighted by my conversation with Lisa. Her identity was not “I am from a war-torn country.” She did not grow up between battlefields. She was not raised in poverty. Instead, we were very similar. She used the same social media. She enjoyed a cheeky cig now and then, but felt guilty about it. She eagerly waited for when the next episode would have her cling, just for an hour, to her couch.

But just when I began to forget our differences, the evening storm cloud rolled by. I did not duck-and-cover at the sound of thunder, but she did. And she ran out of the room. We both went to our beds that night and slept, but only one of us woke up to the notification that our city had been bombed overnight. 

So I have no idea. What it would be like for a random selection of people and buildings in Ogden to disappear each week. To still go to Grounds For Coffee, still watch HBO, and still host friends at my home-wall, but to also  “hear the air alarms so often that now I sleep through them.”

In the morning, the breakfast room was heavy. At the coffee pot, I greeted Hanna, a Ukrainian ornithologist with a smile.

“Good morning, how are you?” The classic American greeting. 

 I didn’t yet know about last night’s air strike, but it didn’t take too long to figure out. Fortunately, the healing power of nature is overwhelming, and after the days’ outdoor activities and learning, what could be felt was the hug of hope. 

In the evening we were drinking together and playing board games again. The evening shot circle was a sacred place I was grateful to be invited to, though its members did not wish to be filmed. 

Evenings were for connection—laughter, tea, and a fiercely competitive board game.

Hanna made fun of my habit to not look people in the eye during a toast.

“Seven years of bad sex, that means.”

Yikes. 

Then, she made fun of my American greeting.

“Why don’t you people just say hello? Then I say hello back and it’s done. If you ask how am I and you don’t want I really tell you. Ukrainians are too emotional for that greeting. If I ask someone how are they, they will wonder why am I asking, and then they will say, “well the building three down from mine was shelled last week, and I haven’t heard from my friend who lived there, but I am fine, how are you?’”

The table laughed at this, although admittedly I wasn’t sure which part was the joke. Time for another round.

I don’t mean to discount the struggles of peoples in areas like Palestine or Afghanistan, but my new drinking buddies feel very different. They are more... HBO? More Hollywood I mean. Everyday relatable people and relationships who look and feel like people that you’d see walking around Ogden. Thrown into a new life of fear and killing. It really is like the stuff of TV shows, only those who are killed off don’t get to open their eyes after the take ends and laugh it off. 

Coping with anxiety or grief in the wake of this lifestyle seems impossibly hard to me. And staying engaged with conservation efforts seems even harder. Yet Lisa and Hanna and all the others showed me mind blowing strength and resilience. They showed hope for the future of their country and their planet. And in doing so, they showed the healing power of the natural world, from which our kind have strayed too far, and clearly need to return to.

Quiet noticing—one of our first practices is to sit with stillness before movement.

I hope to encounter this same resilience and passion for the natural world in the other areas around the globe that become part of the film, and in doing so, hope to spread some part of it to those communities that do not share the same experiences or connections with nature.

Payton’s badge in the meadow—our work lived outdoors as much as in the classroom.

Until Then,

Payton

Postscript - Join us at the table

If this reflection moved you, come meet the people behind it. On Wednesday, Sept 10 at 6:00 PM we’re hosting a Fundraising Community Dinner at Puh’Tok in the Pines. Proceeds support the CNIT Scholarship Fund—the same fund that covered a portion of tuition for three Ukrainian conservation professionals to attend our Fall ’25 (FA25) Nature-Informed Therapy training. They’ll be with us at the dinner to share stories, resilience, and hope.

Add your presence to their healing journey and help us extend scholarships to more communities affected by war and displacement.

Tickets & details: https://www.natureinformedtherapy.org/courses/community-dinner-fa25