The Sun

✦ INSIGHT; CELEBRATION; WARMTH; JOY

✦ Brightness and Life

The Sun is the brightest of our celestial entities, a star that lights the day and gives life to all living creatures of the world.

✦ Nurturing Light

Nurturing, she shines with an exceptionally bright light, garnering the love and admiration of all who lay their eyes upon her. After a dark and cold winter, the sun warms our very bones and dissolves away uncertainty and woes.

✦ Self-Assurance and Joy

Sunflowers bloom from her every step, blanketing her with the glow of their many petals. Dancing in this scene, the Sun is a card of self-assurance, joy, and confidence.

✦ Enlightenment

Her brightness also pierces through the black and shadow, a brilliant light that reveals and enlightens intellectually, while also visually placing her at the very center of our attention.

✦ ADDITIONAL ARTWORK

✦ Heliocentric Significance

Centered around the figure’s face is an elaborate starburst motif with several small dots radiating in a line above her. These represent the 9 planets of our Solar System based on the heliocentric model.

✦ Historical Context

Prior to the Copernican Revolution, most world cultures accepted that the known universe, usually relegated to the planets of the Solar System, revolved around Earth. It was not until the 16th century that an alternate model, centering the planetary bodies around the Sun, would be accepted.

✦ Nicolaus Copernicus

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published the De revolution, containing the heliocentric theory that would soon take hold of Renaissance Europe and dominate the remainder of history. In earlier versions, he cites influence from Greek astronomer Aristarchus, who had proposed the heliocentric model hundreds of years prior in the 3rd century BCE but was rejected by his peers.