THE WOMAN IN THEM

My spirits soared with joy yet also cried out in despair as I read Jeff Spurrier’s article “Las Gringas of San Miguel de Allende.” That women have found a place to come together and support each other in the ancient feminine ways--creating from the heart, healing one another, honoring the crone and communing with nature--gave me reason to rejoice. But that they must seek their solace outside of their own country and at the expense of another basic feminine need--children and male companionship--breaks my heart.

Hopefully your article will shed light on our society’s urgent need to balance its harmful tenets (destruction of nature for profit, subversion of the feminine spirit, institutionalized poverty of women and children and status-based consumerism) with the primal feminine. Thus the millions of women who feel as the gringas do but choose to live here can do so in peace and safety and with the support of the larger community.

KAREN KAIGLER-WALKER

Glendale

Your article on San Miguel de Allende was informative but has left my retirement plans in a shambles. My wife and I were planning on spending our waning days in that city, which we imagined from travel brochures to be a perfect combination of low prices and traditional Mexican culture. Now we know that our retirement haven is overrun with whining, self-absorbed, psycho-babbling Americans.

The smug tone of the article was itself quite revealing: Mexican women imitating Charo in their dress are a subject of derision, while “croning” represents an advanced level of human development. No doubt Mexican culture, with its emphasis on reproductive sexuality, the church and the family, has quite a bit to learn from these dropouts from American society.

LEWIS SOLOFF

Redondo Beach