Out of Exile Lyrics Meaning

I have to interpret Out of Exile as, more than anything, a narrative of Chris Cornell's life.

When he was growing up, Chris battled with severe depression. During that time, he went through deep isolation, spending a large span of time basically doing nothing but drinking and playing music. Even after becoming a successful musician, depression and social phobias plagued him. He pretty much expresses this feeling in the first 5 lines of the song.

If Chris's isolation is the island to which he refers, then perhaps society (or openness) is the ocean. "The ocean sent her waves in the figure of a woman" could best be interpreted as his meeting his second wife, Vicky Karayiannis. Perhaps in contrast to his first marriage, falling in love with her drew him out of the emotional isolation he felt trapped in.

The altar of a sunrise, the wedding in the waves, and the young life within her could quite easily be interpreted as his world beginning anew in this second marriage, and his rebirth into more emotional balance than he had before, and finally the conception of his second child in a less troublesome set of circumstances than his first.

"From her labor I was saved" would be a statement that until he experienced this post-reawakening parenthood, he had trouble ascribing meaning to his life.

I'd interpret the last verse, "Now the spires and the gables grow in orchards to the sky, and the blessings on my table multiply and divide" as follows: when he was alone, on his island, in his fortress, the towers (that is, the things he thinks of as important) seemed big, but they weren't alive and growing. Now that he's come out of his self-imposed exile, the things he holds dear are greater (growing to the sky) and more numerous (orchards of them, multiplying), and are alive and growing. Maybe the "divide" is the idea that his two children, or his new child and his wife divide his time and love?

I think interpreted this way, this song is simply an emotional trip through his life, treating his second marriage as the turning point at which he feels his whole life became joyful and meaningful.

I don't know quite how to make the chorus fit with the autobiographical interpretation though.