Gaea

Gaea (pronounced /'geɪ.ə/ or /'gaɪ.ə/) ("land" or "earth", from the Greek Γαῖα; variant spelling Gaia) is a Greek goddess personifying the Earth.

Greek mythology

Hesiod's Theogony (116ff) tells how, after Chaos came into being, Gaea arose independantly, becoming the everlasting foundation of the gods of Olympus. Similarly, Tartarus, the bowels of the earth, sprung into being contemporaneously. Gaea, the earth, brought forth Uranus, the starry sky, her equal, to cover her, the mountains, and the fruitless deep of the Sea, Pontus, all of these out of her own self, without need of a partner. But afterwards, Hesiod tells, she lay with Uranus and bore the World-Ocean Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and the other Titans Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and Phoebe and lovely Tethys. Finally Cronos was born, who hated his father Uranus and plotted to destroy and succeed him, a story often found in Greek mythological literature. There were six male and female pairs of Titans in all.

Hesiod mentions Gaea's further offspring conceived with Uranus, first the giant one-eyed Cyclopes, builders of walls and creators of lightening, later assigned individual names: Brontes ("thunderer"), Steropes ("flasher") and the "brightener" Arges. Then he adds the three terrible hundred-armed sons of Earth and Heaven, the Hecatonchires: Cottus and Briareus and Gyes, each with fifty heads.

Uranus hid the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes in Tartarus so that they would not see the light, rejoicing in this evil doing. This caused pain to Gaea (Tartarus was her bowels) so she created grey flint and shaped a great flint sickle, gathering together Cronos and his brothers to ask them to obey her. Only Cronos, the youngest, had the daring to take the flint sickle she made, and castrate his father as he approached Gaea. From the drops of blood, Gaea brought forth still more progeny, the strong Erinyes and the armoured Gigantes and the ash-tree Nymphs called the Meliae. From the testicles of Uranus in the sea came forth Aphrodite. Further investigation of Greek mythology reveals that just as Uranus had been deposed by his son Cronos, so was Cronos destined to be overthrown by Zeus, the son born to him by his sister-wife Rhea. In the meantime, the Titans released the Cyclopes from Tartarus, and Cronos was awarded the kingship among them, beginning a Golden Age.

After Uranus' castration, Gaea gave birth to Echidna and Typhon by Tartarus. By Pontus, Gaea birthed the sea-deities Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybia.

Zeus hid Elara, one of his lovers, from Hera by hiding her under the earth. His son by Elara, the giant Tityas, is therefore sometimes said to be a son of Gaea, the earth goddess, and Elara.

Gaea also made Aristaeus immortal.

Gaea is believed by some sources (Joseph Fontenrose 1959 and others) to be the original deity behind the Oracle at Delphi. She passed her powers on to, depending on the source, Poseidon, Apollo or Themis. Apollo is the best-known as the oracle power behind Delphi, long established by the time of Homer, having killed Gaea's child Python there and usurped the chthonic power. Hera punished Apollo for this by sending him to King Admetus as a shepherd for nine years.

Oaths sworn in the name of Gaea, in ancient Greece, were considered the most binding of all.

In classical art Gaea was represented in one of two ways. In Athenian vase painting she was shown as a matronly woman only half risen from the earth, often in the act of handing the baby Erichthonius (a future king of Athens) to Athena to foster. Later in mosaic representations she appears as a woman reclining upon the earth surrounded by a host of Carpi, infant gods of the fruits of the earth.

Interpretations

Etymologically Gaea is a compound word of two elements. *Ge, meaning "Earth" is found in many neologisms, such as Geography (Ge/graphos = writing about Earth) and Geology (Ge/logos = words about the Earth). *Ge is a pre-Greek substrate word that some relate to the Sumerian Ki, also meaning Earth. *Aia is a derivative of an Indo-European stem meaning "Grandmother". The full etymology of Gaea would, therefore, appear to have been "Grandmother Earth" . Some sources, such as authors Marija Gimbutas and Barbara Walker, claim that Gaea as the Mother Earth is a later form of a pre-Indo-European Great Mother who had been venerated in Neolithic times, but this point is controversial in the academic community. Belief in a nurturing Earth Mother is a feature of modern Neopagan "Goddess" worship, which is typically linked by practitioners of this religion to the Neolithic goddess theory. For more information, see the article Goddess.

Hesiod's separation of Rhea from Gaea was not rigorously followed, even by the Greek mythographers themselves. Modern mythographers like Karl Kerenyi or Carl A. P. Ruck and Danny Staples, as well as an earlier generation influenced by Frazer's The Golden Bough, interpret the goddesses Demeter the "mother," Persephone the "daughter" and Hecate the "crone," as understood by the Greeks, to be three aspects of a former Great Goddess, who could be identified as Rhea or as Gaea herself. In Anatolia (modern Turkey), Rhea was known as Cybele. The Greeks never forgot that the Mountain Mother's ancient home was Crete, where a figure some identified with Gaea had been worshipped as Potnia Theron (the "Mistress of the Animals") or simply Potnia ("Mistress"), an appellation that could be applied in later Greek texts to Demeter, Artemis or Athena.

In Rome the imported Phrygian goddess Cybele was venerated as Magna Mater, the "Great Mother" and identified with Roman Ceres, the grain goddess who was an approximate counterpart of Greek Demeter, but with differing aspects and venerated with a different cult.

In other cultures

The idea that the fertile earth itself is female, nurturing mankind, was not limited to the Greco-Roman world. These traditions themselves were greatly influenced by earlier cultures in the Central area of the ancient Middle East. In Sumerian mythology Tiamat influenced Biblical notons of The Deeps in Genesis 1. The title "The mother of life" was later given to the Akkadian Goddess Kubau, and hence to Hurrian Hepa, emergiving as Hebrew Eve (Heva) and Phygian Kubala (Cybele). In Norse mythology the Great Mother, the mother of Thor himself, was known as Jord, Hlódyn, or Fjörgyn. Nanna, another mother Goddess was the mother of the dying God Baldr. The Irish Celts worshipped Danu, whilst the Welsh Celts worshipped Dôn. Dana played an important part in Hindu mythology and hints of their names throughout Europe, such as the Don river, the Danube River, the Dnestr and Dnepr, suggest that they stemmed from an ancient Proto-Indo-European goddess . In Lithuanian mythology Gaea - Žemė is daughter of Sun and Moon. Also she is wife of Dangus (Varuna). In Pacific cultures, the Earth Mother was known under as many names and with as many attributes as cultures who revered her for example Māori whose creation myth included Papatuanuku, partner to Ranginui - the Sky Father. In South America in the Andes a cult of the Pachamama still survives (in regions of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile). The name comes from Pacha (Quechua for change, epoch) and Mama (mother). While ancient Mexican cultures referred to Mother Earth as Tonantzin Tlalli that means "Revered Mother Earth". In Indian religions, the Mother of all creation is called "Gayatri", a surprisingly close form of Gaea.

Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious of all humans, and various Jungian students, eg. Erich Neumann and Ernst Whitmont have argued that such mother imagery underpins many mythologies, and preceeds the image of the paternal "father", in such religious systems. Such speculations help explain the universality of such mother goddess imagery around the world.

In Neopaganism

Many Neopagans actively worship Gaea. Beliefs regarding Gaea vary, ranging from the common Wiccan belief that Gaea is the Earth (or in some cases the spiritual embodiment of the earth, or the Goddess of the Earth), to the broader Neopagan belief that Gaea is the goddess of all creation, a Mother Goddess from which all other gods spring. Gaea is sometimes thought to embody the planets and the Earth, and sometimes thought to embody the entire universe. Worship of Gaea is varied, ranging from prostration to druidic ritual.

Unlike Zeus, a roving nomad god of the open sky, Gaea was manifest in enclosed spaces: the house, the courtyard, the womb, the cave. Her sacred animals are the serpent, the lunar bull, the pig, and bees. In her hand the narcotic poppy may be transmuted to a pomegranate.

Some who worship Gaea attempt to get closer to Mother Earth by becoming unconcerned with material things and more in tune with nature. Others who worship Gaea recognize Gaea as a great goddess and practice rituals commonly associated with other forms of worship. Many sects worship Gaea, even more than worship Themis, Artemis, and Hera.^{[citation needed]} Some common forms of worship may include prostration, attempting to reach a greater connection to the earth, shamanistic practices, tithing, praising and praying, creating inspired works of art dedicated to the goddess, burning oils and incense, rearing plants and gardens, the creation and maintaining of Sacred Groves, and burning bread or spilling drink as offerings.^{[citation needed]} Other forms of worship may indeed be common, as worship of Gaea is very broad and can take many forms.

In modern ecological theory

Main article Gaea theory

The mythological name was revived in 1969 by James Lovelock for his Gaea hypothesis, supported by Lynn Margulis, and now part of Gaea theory. The hypothesis proposes that living organisms and inorganic material are part of a dynamic system that shapes the Earth's biosphere, and maintains the Earth as a fit environment for life. In some Gaea theory approaches the Earth itself is viewed as an organism with self-regulatory functions. Further books by Lovelock and others popularized the Gaea Hypothesis, which was widely embraced and passed into common usage as part of the heightened awareness of planetary vulnerability of the 1990s.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and its Origins, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959; reprint 1980
• Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951
• Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.

External links

• Theoi Project, Gaia references to Gaea in classical literature and art

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