The Moon

The Moon
Anime: Slayers
Characters: Xelloss (top), a Fish Man (below)

"Sore wa...himitsu desu!" ("That's a secret!")
Few things are as frustrating and exasperating to Lina Inverse as running into her old frenemy, Xelloss. There's no coping with him at all. He always knows more than he lets on, and even when he is willing to part with a scrap of information it often isn't nearly as illuminating as one could hope.

Xelloss travels the world disguised as a holy man, though he professes to be an agent of chaos. In reality he is both - if one views the role of the Trickster as a holy one. Sometimes he stands in the way, sometimes he acts as a sort of guardian at the gate, and occasionally - just occasionally - he drops a vital clue, if you happen to be paying attention and thinking in just the right way. But mostly his presence just muddles things up. Like the Moon, his will reflects the will of his mistress (who has a great deal to do with things of an animal nature), and he enjoys nothing so much as watching those around him trip over their own feet.

Here we encounter Xelloss guarding the path back to...well, that's probably civilization and sanity back there over those hills...but who knows for sure? It could be more trouble. What we do know is that we've been in contact with our own subconscious (symbolized by a fish-man), we've fished something up out of there - an insight, a realization, maybe even a psychic experience - and now we're ready to try to bring it out into the light of day so we can understand it better. It looks like a clear path ahead...but is it? Perhaps Xelloss is warning us that things aren't so simple as they seem. He might even be telling us that the information we are trying to get is...a secret.

However, there's one other possibility here. In Zen Buddhism there is an old saying: "A finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger pointing at the moon." Xelloss's finger is raised as though to caution us...but perhaps he is actually pointing at the moon? Could he be trying, in his ever-so-subtle way, to tell you to cut to the chase and pay attention only to the things that are important?

Under the moon the way is never clear, which is often very frustrating. But the only way to get through this muddled patch is to keep going forward. Eventually, no matter how many times we trip over our own misconceptions, we'll get where we need to go.


Meanings at a glance: Confusion. Frustration. Illusion. Self-delusion. Insights from the subconscious.Psychic experiences.

Reversed: Imagination harnessed for practical purpose. Ability to weather the fog of confusion. Take no action yet - wait for matters to become clearer.

*******
Nothing extra to say on this one, really, other than it continued a string of learning experiences, and that there was really no other person for this card than Xelloss.