October: Trauma and Tenderness

Frida Kahlo first survived polio as a child, and was later impaled during a trolley accident at the age of 18, which confined her to bed for over a year (3 months of it in a full body cast). She suffered excruciating pain through 30 surgeries for these injuries, but her confinement is what propelled her to begin painting. This is an extraordinary demonstration of the Power of Limits: seeming misfortunes may contain a hidden blessing.

Frida went on to live a life full of color, becoming an iconic and greatly loved artist. In the calendar's top panel/portrait, she floats over a field of milagros, the charms that are traditionally used, in the Southwest, as offerings in niches and altars, often representing the body part that needs help. The photo of her with her fawn seemed such a testament to the ability of animals, particularly, to unlock the gentle healing of our hearts after trauma.

The periwinkle blue was an attempt to match the color of her house, called Casa Azul; and the window in the panel is actually from her kitchen.

The hands holding water are from a mural by her husband, Diego Rivera. She married him twice, although both of them had other lovers along the way. Some of her lovers were women; according to one source, she enjoyed a liaison with Josephine Baker, another extraordinary pioneer of self-sovereignty, during a visit to Paris in 1939.

Long may you reign in our hearts, Frida.