Meet Julie Wood:

An Ayahuasca Journey Set Her on Her True Path

Jule Wood had achieved the kind of success many people envy. A graduate of Princeton University, she had attained the position of Managing Director at a top New York advertising agency by the age of 40. Her job took her all over the world opening international offices for the growing agency. She owned an apartment on the pricey Upper West Side of Manhattan and lived the active life of a successful New York urbanite.

But it wasn’t until she met a man who took her on a journey to the Peruvian Amazon in a jeep and introduced her to the hallucinogenic substance Ayahuasca that she found a direction in life that truly fulfilled her.

“What I really, really wanted was to find the work that felt important to me, to find a partner to share it with and to feel one with the universe.”

Life until that point certainly wasn’t bad. She had taught in a bilingual Teach for America school in South Central Los Angeles for two years, married a Brazilian art director, and lived and worked in São Paulo. But the marriage had ended in divorce, and she never intended to pursue a long-term career in teaching. She had found her way into the field of advertising by happenstance, but never cared much about making money for her clients. Her corporate role was a poor fit for her personality, requiring her to show up in ways that did not allow her to be herself.

The end of her marriage served as a wake-up call prompting her to focus on finding the fulfillment she lacked. She was thirty-two.

“What I really, really wanted was to find the work that felt important to me, to find a partner to share it with and to feel one with the universe,” Julie recalls.

The next ten years didn’t produce a life partner or a new career, and investigating various spiritual traditions like Christianity and Siddha Yoga led by the guru Gurumayi failed to satisfy her yearnings.

Enter Russ, a New Jersey contractor who had recently closed the construction business he and his father owned and was himself looking for a new life path. At the time Julie met him, he was planning to travel through Latin America on a motorcycle.

Russ had been to the Peruvian Amazon where he had experimented with Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a natural hallucinogen that many believe provides powerful spiritual experiences and insights.

“Do you like bald men?” her friend had asked her. When Julie answered in the affirmative, her friend arranged a blind date with Russ after his return from an Ayahuasca retreat. The two met at sunset on New York’s High Line, an elevated park that used to be a New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan.

After dating for just two weeks, Russ suggested that Julie quit her job, sell her apartment, and travel the world with him. Three months later, that’s exactly what she did.

“I was fascinated about the Ayahuasca experience he’d had,” Julie says of their first meeting. “I just remember us standing there on the High Line, we weren’t really walking anywhere, and just talking. There was so much to talk about.”

Julie told Russ that she wanted out of the advertising business but didn’t know what to do next. He shared his desire to leave the workaday world behind and travel. After dating for just two weeks, Russ suggested that Julie quit her job, sell her apartment, and travel the world with him. Three months later, that’s exactly what she did.

They embarked on what was to be a year spent “overlanding,” which means long-distance, self-reliant adventure travel in a vehicle of some kind. Some people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on this endeavor, but for them, it was a more modest effort.

“He had this two-door Jeep Wrangler, and we basically threw a backpacking tent in there. I had to buy hiking clothes, and we took off,” Julie says of their minimalist enterprise. What was to last for one year went on for five, including extended travel through sixty-nine countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, fifty of those in the Jeep. They parked “El Jeepo” and flew twice — once to the Middle East and once to Asia.

Thirty to fifty people participated in making a brew of the Ayahuasca vine and Chacruna leaves that together made it possible to “journey,” as an Ayahuasca experience is called.

Julie recalls with a special fondness the people of Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Colombia, whom she found friendly and open to engaging foreigners. Sudan was a particular surprise after hearing about what a dangerous place it was supposed to be for terrorism and Islamic militancy. She recalls an instance when their jeep broke down in a residential neighborhood on a day the heat hit 115 degrees. A man came out of his house with a silver tray and some juice. “He was a doctor who saw these two foreigners there sweating. He’s like, I don’t know anything about fixing cars but I know it’s hot, so here’s a drink.”

It was in the Peruvian Amazon town of Iquitos, accessible only by boat and airplane, that they participated in numerous Ayahuasca ceremonies. Thirty to fifty people participated in making a brew of the Ayahuasca vine and Chacruna leaves that together made it possible to “journey,” as an Ayahuasca experience is called. They lay on a mat or sat in a chair while the shamans sang medicine songs in Spanish and English. What happened after ingesting the Ayahuasca mixture varied for each participant.

“You drink the Ayahuasca and it takes you where it wants you to go,” Julie explains. “For me, I definitely had an experience of being connected to everything in the universe and being made of stars, and that kind of experience just sticks with you.”

Vomiting is common after ingesting the Ayahuasca mixture, but Julie didn’t experience this side effect as often as Russ did. When it happened, she felt it served a purpose. “Every time I threw up, I knew exactly what I was throwing up. I could see it. I could see that I was throwing up shielding and protection around myself. It was very intense.”

Julie describes the transformative effects of Ayahuasca for her in the most visceral terms. “It was painful, it felt like I was being torn up inside. It hurt me physically. I felt like a caterpillar that goes into a cocoon and they liquefy and then they become a butterfly.”

On one of the Iquitos retreats, Julie found what she had long been seeking. She and Russ had become good friends of the resident Shaman, an Australian named Malcolm. On one visit, he invited them to serve as guides for other people taking their Ayahuasca journeys. On the last day of the week-long ceremony, the Shaman asked Julie to sing for the assembled group, a prospect that terrified her because she had never sung solo in public before.

When she got up to sing, “My friend, who was an apprentice Shaman there, put her hand on my back right behind my heart. There was something magical that happened where I dropped into my heart and I sang from that place, a place of love, and love filled up the whole ceremony space.”

After completing her solo, Malcolm announced to the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re witnessing the birth of a medicine woman!” People burst into applause.

This was the transformational moment Julie had been seeking. After spending the rest of the week in service to others, “I discovered the power of my voice and the power of another woman supporting me and the power of my heart,” she says. “I saw that I’m going to do something, I wasn’t totally sure what, but something to support other people to get clear on the truth of who they are and tap into their power and all that goodness.”

With her mission accomplished, Julie wanted to return to the US to pursue her new life path. Russ, however, was reluctant to settle down and wanted to continue traveling. They agreed to hit the road for another year, which ended up being two years. During that time, they married, first in an impromptu Nepalese ceremony at the hands of a Mr. Shiva, who was said to channel the Hindu god himself, and later in the US in a private ceremony overlooking the Delaware River with only her sister-in-law and her two kids in attendance. They chose the location, near a falcon nesting area about 200 feet above the Delaware River, because it was the site of their first kiss. It took two hours to hike there, so it was a sweaty ceremony. They had Julie’s sister-in-law ordained online so that she could officiate the ceremony.

In January 2020, Julie launched her business and began coaching women online and leading public speaking workshops called WomanSpeak Circles.

The two eventually left the North East and settled in Taos, New Mexico, where they bought a house. Julie, now fifty, took a year-long training to become a women’s empowerment coach, and Russ set about applying his construction skills to the betterment of their home, a task he’s found a satisfying alternative to global travel.

In January 2020, Julie launched her business and began coaching women online and leading public speaking workshops called WomanSpeak Circles. Motivated by a desire to help women succeed in the world as their true selves, she practices a form of body-based somatic coaching.

“We’re all taught to overemphasize masculine strengths like being rational and competitive, and it’s just out of balance and not true to a lot of us,” she explains.

“I want women to thrive as themselves because that’s something I went through, of faking it the whole time in advertising. I just never really believed I could be successful as my kind, gentle, loving self and my intuitive, feminine self.”

In coaching women, Julie has found a meaningful life purpose completely congruent with who she is. “I love it when I’m coaching. I feel good and I love leading the WomanSpeak Circle,” she says. And that’s just the right place for a newly birthed medicine woman to be.

This story will be included in a book about women who make a major life change entitled, Women Rising: True Stories of Rebirth and Renewal. If you have a compelling story to tell, or know someone who does, contact me at cityfeller55@gmail.com and tell me about it. Your story could end up in my book.