From Sun Giant to Sunblind
The Exaltation of the Sun and Playing in Shadow in the Music of Fleet Foxes
I was reading the lyric book Wading in Waist-High Water: The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes, and the first entry is Sun Giant which was released on April 8, 2008, and I started thinking. The Sun is a common metaphor and theme in Fleet Foxes lyrics, and the Sun on that date was in Aries, where the Sun is exalted. I started checking charts relevant to the band, searching for connections, and found many.
The Sun is the most important planet in astrology, just as it is the source of vitality in our natural world. But more than that, it is the link between our physical self, often represented by the Moon, and the spark of life that we call the soul.
In this podcast “The Sun in Astrology” with Chris Brennan and Demetra George, Chris sites a translation1 in which he says the Sun is at 15° of Leo, bc that’s the middle of the summer, when the heat and light are at their peak strength, and the Sun becomes the central focal point of all the other planets. Because Mercury cannot be more than one sign away from the Sun, that puts Mercury in Virgo in its exaltation, and Venus, that cannot be more than two signs away from the Sun, is in Libra, its domicile. Brennan goes on to say the strength of the Sun is the starting point for the domicile rulership of the planets, and also the exaltation schema that we are considering.
In traditional astrology, we use a philosophical system called Essential Dignity to determine the strength and effectiveness of a planet in the context of a chart. Certain planets rule and/or excel in certain zodiacal signs, and struggle or take less-traveled paths in others. Our birth charts and indeed, every moment of time on Earth, is a mixture of these measurements of ease and difficulty. The people and moments exemplified by these planets are not good or bad, but rather, show how easily and recognizably we can operate in the world.
Outside of domicile and its opposite, what we call detriment, there are also the terms exaltation and fall. The exaltation of the Sun is in the sign of Aries, and also in the 19th degree of Aries, meaning at 18-18° 59’. Alice Sparkly Kat writes in their essay, Exaltations and Falls that “exalted planets are planets that want to be seen for the things that planet represents. The exalted Moon in Taurus wants to be seen as resourceful and abundant. The exalted Sun in Aries wants to be seen as successful.”
The Sun Giant EP was released on April 8, 2008, when the Sun was at 19° of Aries, just missing the exaltation degree. The planet Mars was in the sign of Cancer, and while Mars was in its Fall, it answers to an exalted Moon in the sign of Taurus. Venus is also in Aries, in detriment. This EP was recorded after Fleet Foxes first album, but because the release of their album was in June, and they were going on tour before then, they recorded and released this EP just to have something to sell at shows. The EP did extremely well, perhaps due to the exalted Sun and Moon, but was released just to have something, which reflect the weakness of the positions of Venus and Mars. This is a great example of planets behaving outside the norms of domicile and exaltation, where success is possible, just not in the way that you think. Yet as Robin Pecknold said in a footnote in WIWHW, Sun Giant is the spiritual first song of Fleet Foxes.2
In terms of the artistry of Fleet Foxes and in particular Sun Giant, there emerges themes that runs throughout the work of the band, of the Sun itself, of wanderers, of natural landscapes of far away places, and of more than heroic quests, endless, internal questioning. The song Sun Giant is sung a capella, and to me, the song takes me to the top of a mountain at dawn, looking down on a valley, hearing the voices echoing and blending with the rocks. The ingress of the Sun into the sign of Aries marks the Spring Equinox, and this song evokes that freshness.
What a life I live in the Summer,
What a life I live in the Spring,
What a life I lead when the wind it breathes
What a life I lead in the spring
What a life I lead when the sun breaks free
As a giant torn from the clouds
What a life indeed when that ancient seed
Is a-buried, watered, and plowed
The Spring Equinox is one of the most important dates in the calendar of astrological phenomena. In Islamicate astrology, the exact time of the Spring Equinox is used for the mundane, predictive chart of a country. This tradition is linked to the Persian New Year, Nowruz, and in addition to our modern correlation with Aries as the 1st sign of the zodiac, symbolizes the beginnings we associate with spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
Robin Pecknold is an Aries Sun at 9° or 10° depending on his birthtime, either the decan of Jupiter or the decan of the Sun.3 His Sun is ruled by Mars in Capricorn, also in its exaltation. Saturn is with the Moon in Sagittarius, providing a more stoic emotional state, especially as the Moon squares Mercury in Pisces and Jupiter is in domicile in Pisces. His Venus is also in Aries, in the 3rd decan, a place of power for entertainers, even if Venus does not otherwise do well in Mars-ruled signs and may not be as helpful in romantic situations.
Without a confirmed birth time for the band or any of its members, I can only speculate on rising signs, but Venus seems to be an important planet to this band, along with the Sun and Mars. What I also find interesting is that Skylar Skjelset is a Venus-ruled Taurus Sun, born on the 3rd of May 19864 and that he and Pecknold share a Mercury Venus conjunction in Aries, a wonderful sign of artistic partnership and understanding in friendship.
I would be happy to get birthtimes or more than just a year for when the band was formed, which I couldn’t find online beyond the year 2006.
Another symbolic representation of the beginning of Spring and the sign of Aries, is the tarot card The Fool. Numbered 0, it represents the youthful impulse to ramble and the card in the well-known Rider-Waite deck has a sun in the right corner, urging him on to his fate, even as his dog pleads with him to step away from the ledge.
The song “Fool's Errand” from Crack-Up5, a decidedly less solar album, but one of my favorites, is a slightly cynical manifestation of the Sun. The Sun rules over sight, prophecy, and delusion.6 The beginning of artistic and esoteric journeys are often foolish in hindsight, but part of an initiation that rewards you with something greater than security. Or as Pecknold puts it “it ends up being about balancing the idealism and zest that seem necessary for making good music with the realism required to be a functioning person in society”7
In looking at the charts for each Fleet Foxes album, I noticed that the Jupiter in the chart for Sun Giant was in Capricorn, in its fall, but in the 3rd decan ruled by the Sun, and that this transit is also found in the release date for the album Shore. T Susan Chang calls this decan “The Lord of Power” in her book 36 Secrets. The corresponding tarot card, the 4 of Pentacles, depicting a man clutching and sitting on 4 coins is in great contrast to the openness of The Fool. While Jupiter in Capricorn, ruled by the parsimonious and boundary defining planet Saturn, the opposite of the Sun, I appreciate the deeper meaning that T Susan Chang finds in this decan that bridges the themes of the more Saturnian album Crack-Up versus the isolated but joyfully reflective Shore.
If Saturn watches over the long-term cycles of our lives as we ease into maturity, the Sun watches over the short-term promise of each day and what we make of it. There’s a connection between seizing the day and fulfilling the life.8
Released on the Autumn Equinox of 2020 at 6:31 am PCT, there is a moment of continuity and perhaps completion of some sort of cycle with the album Shore and Sun Giant, especially as Pecknold points out that the line “On the shore, speak to the ocean and receive silence” is visualized in the accompanying film to the album Shore.9 The Equinoxes are the balance points of the year when light and darkness are equal. The Sun gains in strength as it reaches the Summer Solstice and loses it as it goes to the Winter Solstice. One point inevitably leads to another. What was once fresh now leads to decay and end, but also in this album, to continuous inspiration.
The song “Wading in Waist-High Water” with the vocalist Uwade singing instead of Pecknold, literally singing about the change of the seasons on the change in the seasons should be too much, but its perfect. There is still amidst the autumn images of “weakening August water” and “sunlight covered over” a wonderful Venus in Aries evocation “and I love you so violent // More than maybe I can do”.
The tension in this chart, in this time and album resides in Jupiter again in Capricorn, although this time in the more cooperative 2nd decan, as it is conjoined Pluto and Saturn. Since we have a timed chart, the chart ruler is Mercury in Libra being opposed by Mars in Aries. Fortunately, Venus is in Leo providing some hidden relief from the 12th house. This isn’t the kind of election you would choose for an album, but it does describe the quality of time, sitting at home watching the visuals with this album, knowing that others were too.
The song Sunblind is a sincere, wonderful tribute to specific artists who have passed that inspire Robin Pecknold. With Venus in Leo contrasting with the Sun in Libra, performance is the greatest tribute and understanding of these artists.
I'm overmatched (for Arthur Russell)
I'm half as wise (Duncan and Curtis)
If this is flat, brother I apologize
(Jimi and David, for Nick and Otis)
No one alone (For Bell and Buckley)
Can leave the cave (Marvin and Adam)
And all you've loaned won't be kept inside a grave
(For Arthur Russell, for Arthur Russell)
In contrast to all of the wonderful Fleet Foxes songs that revolve around the Sun, which I haven’t mentioned all of them here, there is one song that on Shore that stands out as a song about the shadow of judgement and release of forgiveness. Painfully beautiful, a Libra Sun album requires a song like “Featherweight”. The Egyptian goddess, Ma’at, daughter of the Sun god Ra, was responsible for order and justice in the world. She weighed each heart in the Hall of Judgement after death, and you could only pass if your heart is as light as a feather. Justice is a signification of the sign of Libra, and asserts that the harmony of Venus relies on a system where even those in power are held accountable. The special, singular nature of the Sun is not an asset in the Hall of Judgement, and the very concept of the Sun in fall is explained in the lyrics “In all that war I'd forgotten how // Many men might die for what I'd renounce // I was staging life as a battleground //No I let that grasping fall”.10
I think my favorite moment of solar prophecy from Shore is the song “Going-to-the-Sun Road” about a real place that I have been, but I didn’t know until reading WIWHW that Robin Pecknold has never gone, at least at the time of publishing the songbook.11 In that contradiction, there is again of letting go of expectation and of “losing my fight” while the desire for the place remains.
The final chart I want to share is another timed chart, in keeping with the release of Shore on the Autumn Equinox, A Very Lonely Solstice, a performance recorded and live-streamed on December 21, 2020. This is not only the date of the Winter Solstice, but what astrologers like Abu Ma’shar and Mashallah considered a new epoch in mundane astrology12 concerned with world events. The line “now we’re finally aligning // maybe more than I could chose” in “Wading in Waist-High Water” seems like a nod to the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius.
This chart is ruled by the Sun, just as it crossed over into the sign of Capricorn and envelopes Mercury in a Cazimi, or its heart. A cazimi is a purifying trial by fire when a planet passes through the heart of the Sun, and this one is answering to an airy Saturn and Jupiter. The martial element in this chart is also strong, with Mars finally direct in Aries after a tumultuous retrograde present in the chart of Shore, and the Moon in the first degree of Aries, both squaring the Sun and calling back and forward to the Spring Equinox, the next moment of balance in the new year. The best and funniest thing about astrology is that even when you aren’t aware of it, it’s still working, or as astrologers say “as above, so below.” Which comes first, the impetus of the Heavens or the Earth is a question we can’t answer, but I’ll think about it walking down the road, probably listening to Fleet Foxes.
This is a translation of Abu Ma’shar, who is himself citing an older, lost text attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, go to 14:45 for this section but also just watch or re-watch the whole thing.
Wading in Waist-High Water, p 13 first footnote
I lean towards 10° but recognize my own bias for wanting the argument of all 3 decans of Aries covered in this essay.
His birthday is immortalized in the song “Third of May/Ōdaigahra” see WIWHW p 151 for more references.
This chart has Saturn in Sagittarius opposite the Sun and Mercury in Gemini, with a Pisces moon forming a t-square for an emotional, Saturn return album. Maybe we’ll talk about it some other newsletter.
The Sun in Medieval Astrology podcast by Dr. Ali A. Olomi, yes it’s paywalled but you should join and it’s shorter than the other podcast cited.
WIWHW, p169 footnote
36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot, p 211
WIWHW, p9. This image of the shore also reminds me of the Thema Mundi
WIWHW, p200
WIWHW, p231
Trigger warning: this episode predicts the pandemic, but discusses the Great Conjunction https://theastrologypodcast.com/2019/12/16/2020-astrology-forecast-overview-of-the-year-ahead/ Another helpful, predictive source is Dr. Ali A. Olomi’s article that compiles translations and interpretations here https://www.patreon.com/posts/great-of-jupiter-44583047
Interesting! I love astro twins -- Robin Pecknold is two days younger than Lady Gaga. She has the Moon in Scorpio to his Moon in Sagittarius.
https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Lady_Gaga
My new book Impossible Dreams: Hopes, Fears, and Expectations for Saturn in Pisces talks about Kurt Cobain's surprising astro twin -- someone with a very different public presentation, but perhaps they have a lot in common below the surface.