When I first read Women Who Run With the Wolves, I felt like I’d stumbled upon a secret map — one that led not just into the psyche, but into the very earth where myth and memory meet. Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ voice was both ancient and fiercely present, and her stories seemed to echo from places that held their own magic. As I followed her work, I began to realize that her spirit was rooted in real landscapes — landscapes that shaped her voice and continue to hold whispers of the wild woman archetype she so beautifully described.

If you're drawn to Estes’ wisdom, walking where she walked can deepen your understanding of her teachings. Here are five places tied to her life and work that feel like they breathe with the same soulfulness found in her words.

##Boulder, Colorado – The Hearth of Storytelling

Boulder is where Clarissa Pinkola Estes made her home for many years, and it’s where much of her most influential work was born. Nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder is a place where the land rises to meet the sky — a fitting backdrop for a woman whose stories seem to come from the marrow of the earth.

She often spoke of the importance of storytelling as healing, and in Boulder, she taught countless workshops and lectures that wove psychology, myth, and women’s rites of passage. Many who attended her sessions say the air in the room felt charged, like the mountains themselves were listening. Walking through Boulder’s open spaces, especially in the early morning mist, it’s easy to imagine Estes gathering stories like wildflowers — each one holding a secret, a warning, or a promise.

##Lake Atitlán, Guatemala – Where the Ancestors Speak

Clarissa’s Hungarian and Romanian heritage deeply influenced her work, but she also drew wisdom from her time in Central America. Her connection to Lake Atitlán in Guatemala is less known but equally powerful. Surrounded by volcanoes and Mayan villages, the lake has long been a sacred space for indigenous spiritual practices.

Estes spent time there, absorbing the rhythms of the local women — their weaving, their prayers, their quiet strength. She once said that the lake was a place where “the veil between worlds is thin.” If you visit, you might feel it too — that sense of being watched over by something older than memory. It’s not hard to imagine her sitting by the water, notebook in hand, listening to the wind carry stories in languages she had yet to translate.

##New Mexico – The Land of Blood Memory

New Mexico has always been a crossroads of cultures, and for Estes, it was also a place of ancestral memory. Her mother was from a Spanish-American family rooted in the Southwest, and Estes often spoke of the land there as “blood memory made visible.”

The mesas, the adobe chapels, the scent of sage after rain — all of it seems to hum with the stories of women who have come before. Estes wrote about the importance of returning to the land of one’s ancestors, and New Mexico offered her that return. If you follow her trail through the northern villages, especially in Abiquiú or Chimayó, you’ll feel the same pull — a call to remember who you are through the land itself.

##Lake Michigan – The Edge of Transformation

Estes has spoken of a defining moment in her life that took place on the shores of Lake Michigan. It was during a particularly brutal winter, and she stood for hours watching the ice shift and crack. She said the lake taught her that transformation is not always graceful — sometimes it’s loud, messy, and full of broken edges.

That image stayed with me. So much of her writing circles around the idea that women must not fear their own breaking — that from those fractures, the wild self emerges. If you visit Lake Michigan in winter, especially near the northern shores where the cold cuts through everything, you may understand what she meant. The lake doesn’t ask you to be pretty. It asks you to be real.

##Santa Fe, New Mexico – The Gathering Place

Santa Fe was where Clarissa Pinkola Estes often returned to teach, speak, and gather with other women. The city, with its deep spiritual roots and layered cultures, offered a fertile ground for her message. She held retreats there, sometimes in small adobe homes or at retreat centers tucked into the hills.

There’s something about Santa Fe that feels like a threshold — a place where stories are passed hand to hand like sacred fire. If you visit, take a quiet walk through the Loretto Chapel or the Museum of International Folk Art. You might hear the echo of her voice, reminding women that they are not lost — they are only being remade.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes taught us that every woman has a wild soul, and that soul is best found in the wild places — both within and beyond. If you’re ready to hear her voice again, not just in books but in the wind, the water, and the earth, these places will welcome you like an old story remembered.

On HoloDream, Clarissa will tell you that healing is not linear, and that the wild woman is never far away — she’s in the rustle of leaves, in the hush of the lake, in the silence between your own breaths.

Talk to Clarissa Pinkola Estes on HoloDream and ask her how to find your wild self in the everyday.