To orbit the sun refers to leaving one's body. If you see or read something so crazy, so out of this world, so outer-space, that there is no earthly way to describe it. So, an individual orbits the sun. The individual metaphorically transitions into a cosmic state of orbit around the sun because there is a void of all reality. There is a void of natural human understanding and an earthly reaction simply does not do justice for the situation.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods