The gift of foresight was unique to women and goddesses until Apollo became the god of prophecy: even then, it was a role shared with his cousin, Hecate. In the meantime, while she was with Pontus, Gaia had more children: the five famous sea-deities, Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and Eurybia.īesides being the creator of the other primordial deities, the mighty Titans, and many other entities, Gaia is also believed to be the origin of prophecy in Greek mythology. Next, with Uranus still as her partner, Gaia then birthed the first three massive one-eyed Cyclopes and the first three Hecatonchires – each with a hundred arms and fifty heads. After them was born Cronus the wily, youngest, and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.” Next – as if all of that wasn’t enough to solidify Gaia’s role of being known as the Great Mother – the world’s first goddess went on to take her sons, Uranus and Pontus as lovers.Īs the great poet Hesiod describes in his work, Theogony, Gaia gave birth to the twelve mighty Titans from union with Uranus: “deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. She also gave birth to the first of many sea gods, Pontus, and the graceful mountain deities, the Ourea, without a “sweet union” (or, parthenogenetically). With her uncanny ability to create life, Gaia birthed the primordial sky god Uranus on her own. In short, in the very beginning, the Earth was made, along with its depths, accompanied by this lofty idea of love. In a summary of the events published by Oxford University Press, after Gaia came the concept of passionate love, Eros, and then the dark pit of punishment, Tartarus. Gaia is a central part within the Greek creation myth, where she is identified as the first deity to have emerged from the empty, yawning void-state referred to as Chaos. Similarly, further criticisms point to the hypothesis being teleological in nature, where life and all things have a predetermined purpose. Primarily, the hypothesis is called to question by evolutionary biologists that note that it largely disregards the theory of natural selection, since life would have developed by cooperation rather than competition. To this day, the relationships proposed by the Gaia Hypothesis face criticisms. These feedback loops are the heart of the system that is purported by Lovelock and Margulis. This would mean that there is a complex, synergistic relationship between a single living organism and inorganic things akin to water, soil, and natural gases. Developed initially in 1972, the Gaia Hypothesis makes the suggestion that living organisms interact with surrounding inorganic matter to form a self-regulating system with the purpose of maintaining the condition of life on Earth. In the early 1970’s, the Earth goddess Gaia helped inspire a hypothesis posited by prolific scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Throughout history, she has been referred to as Gaia, Gaea, and Ge, though all translate back to the ancient Greek word for “earth.” Additionally, her influence over the very Earth lends her to be also associated with earthquakes, tremors, and landslides. She is considered to be the ancestral mother of all life, since from her all else was born. In Greek mythology, Gaia was worshiped as a fertility and Earth goddess. A mother goddess can similarly be depicted as a pregnant woman, or as a woman partially emerging from the Earth. More often than not, a mother goddess is identified with a full-figured woman, as seen in the Woman of Willendorf statue, or the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük figurine. In fact, the ancient Greeks had three other mother goddesses besides Gaia, including Leto, Hera, and Rhea. A majority of ancient religions have a figure that can be identified as a mother goddess, such as Anatolia’s Cybele, ancient Ireland’s Danu, Hinduism’s seven Matrikas, the Incan Pachamama, ancient Egypt’s Nut, and the Yoruba’s Yemoja. The title of “mother goddess” is granted to important deities that are the embodiment of the Earth’s bounty, are the source of creation, or are goddesses of fertility and motherhood. Thanks to her being the very first of Greek deities and having had some hand in the creation of all other life, she is identified as a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion. Not to be dramatic, but Gaia is the single oldest ancestor of the Greek gods besides the entity known as Chaos, which she emerged from at the beginning of time. She is known as the “Earth Mother” and is the originator of all – literally. Gaia is one of the most important deities within ancient Greek mythology.
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