Felix Labisse's "The Prodigal Daughter" 1943

I've always liked this painting.

Felix Labisse was a French Surrealist painter. I will profile some of his other works later. I first saw this piece almost 20 years ago in Grad. school when I was working on Georges Bataille. It's in his book "Tears of Eros". Georges Bataille's thought, particularly his book, "Erotism" has been very influential for me and was one of the things that turned me on to Buddhist Tantra so many years ago.

I feel, "The Prodigal Daughter", is a very Shamanic work. Perhaps that is why it touched me so, all those years ago and why it continues to inspire me - bizarre as it is.

For me, "The Prodigal Daughter" voices the idea of the Dark, Divine Feminine [the "Anima" in Jung's words] - the primordial matrix of all - once repressed and now fully emerging, fully surfacing in consciousness. Her face and sexual organs are hidden by her hair and dark robe and her hands [passionate activity] covered by scarlet gloves. And yet signs of her wild nature becoming free are everywhere: her freely flowing unkept hair, the coy smile and the black bird [an angelic figure in many cultures] flying out from her face. A dawning sun is rising throught the clouds and yet the real illumination of the piece comes from her naked form - bright and luminous like a lamp. The two young saplings, I feel are the key to the painting. I feel they represent the true nature of the shamanic "World Tree". The one in leaf is inside her body like the merdian energy system of her subtle body.  Notice how the trunk would represent her central channel of this system. The "World Tree" is the interpenetrating "Web of Life" that unites all. Yet, the only real way to access it is through your own nervous system - through the subtle energy currents [Qi or "Prana"] on which your thoughts ride - those thoughts that create reality itself. Having both saplings present here shows that there is no difference between outer and inner - between self and world. And that the way to express and manifest one's true divinity - the true nature of self and world - is to find it within, realize it yourself and to give it birth.