We caught up with herbalist and intuitive healer Jill Ruttenberg at her 8 acre jungle retreat center in Costa Rica. The Center, AmaTierra, is named for her two daughters, Amanda and Tara, and loosely translates to “Beloved Earth.”
We were seated in oversized faux-leather chairs in the hotel lobby. A beige, flat gecko held onto the wall behind Jill’s head. The faint smell of incense wafted from the front desk. I asked her: “How did a woman who was raised in the suburbs of Chicago end up in this small Central American country running a wellness center?”
“Well,” Jill says, “in 2004, I worked on John Kerry’s campaign in Tucson. We were some of those people who said ‘if George Bush is in, we are out.” With their two daughters in college, Jill says she and her husband Bob literally felt “pushed out” of the United States, and the path southward was swift.
“It was an urging…like a calling” she recalls, “and I have all these planets in Aries, in a fire sign, always starting something new. OR starting trouble.” The desire to escape, to expand to a foreign country, and the dream to create a wellness center—an oasis where people would pause, re-set and heal, however, was not new. It was something Jill longed for even when her two girls were small.
“The U.S. experience, our girls growing up there, felt empty, our family trying to fit in to the norms of American culture. It just never really worked for us”. She scratched her scalp and ran a wet facecloth across her forehead, skewing golden brown bangs into a curtain, revealing a lined forehead. She certainly didn’t look 72. With brown eyes fixed wistfully on the mountain view out the big open doors of the lobby, she laughed and said, “Maybe I’m just a malcontent.”
So, you’re an herbalist, I said. Take me through that journey.”
Jill sat forward, engaged. “Well, I was a hippie chick, you know? Making my home in the mountains of Colorado where Bob and I met in his little record store, sharing the love of music, which is still our bond, 50 years later. I would gather wild chamomile, mountain sage and rosehips, make teas and chew on ginseng roots for energy.”
I couldn’t really imagine this woman ever being devoid of energy, as she seemed to be in so many places at once, answering questions her manager put forth, excusing herself to direct the chef, jumping up to help a guest ice a swollen ankle. She was clearly competent to manage an ocean full of tasks, driven by passion and purpose.
Hippiedom may have been the beginning of her path to becoming a natural health practitioner, but it was not until her girls came into the picture (2 babies just seven months apart) that Jill got serious about learning herbal medicine. She wasn’t satisfied with the methods of western medicine and sought better options for her family.
“I knew there had to be something I could do for my kids if they got sick on a Friday night—something that would prevent them from getting sicker while we waited til the pediatrician could see them on Monday,” she said. “And it turns out there were many things a parent could do.”
She learned about homeopathy, and a brilliant OMD (Dr. of Oriental medicine), Joel Penner who was her acupuncturist in southern California, taught her the theory of Traditional Chinese medicine. After a while she started sharing information with other moms in the community, taking trips to Chinatown in downtown L.A., and coaching them to make home medicine kits to treat common ailments.
At the same time, Jill was learning massage therapy, first Shiatsu and then Swedish massage. It was a perfect job. She could call her own hours and work around her kids’ preschool schedules. With a passion for learning, she eventually became a professional herbalist and a council member of the American Herbalist Guild.
But herbal medicine and massage therapy were not the only tools in her toolbox. Beneath it all was a deeper healing energy about to rise to the surface. How did you become an intuitive energy healer? , I asked her.
“I don’t like to call myself a Healer, per se,” she told me, “because I don’t think anyone can HEAL anyone. All we can do is tune in, give love and create an energy field that facilitates people healing themselves.”
The intuitive part….the sensitivity…Jill believes is mostly a gift she was born with, enhanced by the practice of dissociation which was crucial in order to survive a frightening, violent home life when she was very young.
“I remember literally rising above my body, and there were Beings there, and voices, and colors and resounding musical chords like a church organ.” She considers herself clairaudient, clairsentient and at times clairvoyant. In the late 1980s she honed her skills and took a psychic healing course from a talented, 80 year old German woman named Rayla Hammond. She learned to feel imbalances in the body and to help correct them. And it was then that she discovered a new gift…the ability to see colors with her hands while touching people and to brighten, correct or change the colors she sees, to help people heal.
“Aside from your dedication to your work and to helping people, what gives you joy?” I asked?
“Well, that’s easy,” she answered. “My 2 beautiful, talented daughters and my three grandest ones. And my music.” Jill is a singer and accompanies herself on piano and guitar. The sing-alongs at AmaTierra are a festive way for guests to express themselves and create comradery.
Leaning forward to reach for a sparkling amethyst geode on the wooden table in front of her, she added, “And what keeps me sane and grounded in all of this is my yoga practice and meditation. I’ve been doing that since 1970, and teaching since 1999. It’s amazing to me how yoga has become so popular. Back in the day, we were considered a cult. Turns out we knew a few things, right?” She nodded and rose, I imagine, to move on to the next thing.
Jill Ruttenberg, RH, Co-Owner & Wellness Director of AmaTierra Retreat & Wellness Center in Costa Rica, is a professional nutritionist, certified practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and clinical herbalist registered with the American Herbalist Guild. She is also an experienced massage therapist, energy healer and Hatha yoga instructor. The Wellness Center at AmaTierra is Jill’s living dream, the fruition of decades of training, practice and experience in natural medicine and the healing arts.