Gaia Terra

Gaia (pronounced /ˈɡeɪ.ə/ or /ˈɡaɪ.ə/; "land" or "earth", from the Ancient Greek Γαῖα; also Gæa or Gea (Koine and Modern Greek Γῆ)[1] is the primal Greek goddess personifying the Earth.

Gaia is a primordial and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess.

Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra Mater.

Gaia

Goddess of the Earth

Abode Earth

Consort Uranus

Parents Chaos

Children Uranus, Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion

FROM: GREEK MYTHOLOGY LINKS.

Gaia

NATURAL PERSONIFICATIONS

Gaia is the Earth. She is the offspring of Chaos or comes into being after it.

Gaia appears

The first to exist was Chaos, a void of unexplained origin. After Chaos, Gaia appeared, whether she was the offspring of Chaos or not, and also Eros, through whom the whole Cosmos came to be; for the world is not created, but procreated through Love and intercourse.

Birth of Uranus

Then Gaia bore Uranus (Sky, or Heaven), as an equal to herself; for as the gods have in her a sure standing-place, they have, in Uranus, a secure resting place. This is why Heaven and Earth, though being different, are equal.

And after Uranus, she brought forth, by herself, the MOUNTAINS and Pontus, the sea.

Somos Gaia

Gaiateca >> Boletín Gaia >> Somos Gaia

Somos Gaia 

por Bárbara Guerrero

El concepto de la Tierra como un organismo viviente es común en las creencias de muchas culturas a lo largo de la Historia. Y no sólo se ha visto el planeta como un ser vivo, sino como algo sagrado. Los antiguos griegos o los hindúes de la antigüedad y los indígenas del continente americano, e incluso muchas otras tribus repartidas por todo el mundo actual, todos se consideran hijos de la Tierra.

El hecho es que se ha venerado con distintos nombres: Pachamama, Tonantsin, Deméter la "madre", Perséfone la "hija", o Hécate la "vieja" que eran tres aspectos de la misma diosa que podría identificarse como Rea. En Anatolia (la actual Turquía) era conocida como Cibeles. En Roma la diosa importada Cibeles fue venerada como Magna Mater, la "Gran Madre", e identificada con Ceres, la diosa romana de la agricultura y para la mitología griega, la diosa GEA o GAIA. En la mitología nórdica la Gran Madre, la misma madre de Thor, era conocida como Jord, Hlódyn o Fjörgyn. En la mitología lituana Gaia -Zeme es hija del Sol y la Luna, y también esposa de Dangus (Varuna).

Gaia (en griego "suelo" o "tierra", también deletreado Ge, Gea, Gaea o Gaya) personifica en la mitología griega la fertilidad de la Tierra. Con Urano, Gaia tuvo tres grupos de hijos: los Titanes y Titánides, modelos de belleza, unos gigantes de cien brazos llamados Hecatónquiros, y otros gigantes con un solo ojo llamados Cíclopes. También se consideran a las Erinias, una especie de ninfas, un cuarto grupo de hijos de Gaia y Urano.

[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology)]

Gaia (pronounced /ˈɡeɪ.ə/ or /ˈɡaɪ.ə/; from Ancient Greek Γαῖα "land" or "earth"; also Gaea or Gea, from Koine and Modern Greek Γῆ) is the primal Greek titan personifying the Earth, the Greek version of "Mother Nature", of which the earliest reference to the term is the Mycenaean Greek ma-ka (transliterated as ma-ga), "Mother Gaia", written in Linear B syllabic script.

Gaia is a primordial deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Titan or Great Titan.

Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra Mater or Tellus. Romans, unlike Greeks, did not consistently distinguish an Earth Titan (Tellus) from a grain goddess (Ceres).

Greek mythology Summary - Wikipedia

Birth of Gaia.

"Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of the world.[21] The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by Hesiod's Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the Erebus.[22] Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the Titans: six males and six females (Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, and Cronus); then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of [Gaia's] children"[22])castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus, persuaded by his mother, challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes, (whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.[23] The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical mythos — and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.[24] Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.[25] A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with Nyx (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.[26] The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the dead.[27]

www.familysearch.org.

From Greek Mythology Summary Wikipedia.

Birth of Gaia or Gea.

"Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of the world.[21] The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by Hesiod's Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the Erebus.[22] Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the Titans: six males and six females (Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, and Cronus); then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of [Gaia's] children"[22])castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus, persuaded by his mother, challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes, (whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.[23] The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical mythos — and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.[24] Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.[25] A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with Nyx (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.[26] The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the dead.[27]

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Gaia

Greek Goddess of Earth

Background | Creation of Her | Creation by Her | The King Must Die

Background

Gaia, more frequently spelled Ge, was the Earth. She is rarely even referred to as a deity, she is more a power. What is. She was one of the firsts. Well, one of the firsts in some versions. There are actually a couple of different Creation myths, and not all of them include Gaia (I know, it shocked me, too). The original Greek Mythology (ie, pre-Classical) was was Pelasgian myth (the Pelasgians came to Greece from the Asia Minor 3,000 years before Hesiod). The Pelasgian creation story focuses on Eurynome, the Goddess of All Things. But you can go to the Myth Page on Eurynome's Creation Story if you want to learn more about that. Here, we will focus on Gaia. There are two parts: .

"First in my prayer, before all other deities,

I call upon Gaia, Primeval Prophetess . . .

The Greek great earth mother."

~Aeschylus~

Creation of Her

There are two accepted versions of Classical creation: Hesiod's and Ovid's. Both versions begin with Gaia's emergence from Chaos. She has a parthenogenic birth (ie, only one parent needed). According to Ovid, Gaia pretty much just appeared (similar to the Judeo-Christian creation story). After her birth, Ovid continued to see the hand of a Creator at work (an un-named Creator), who populated Gaia with the necessary mountains, seas, flora, and fauna. I much prefer Hesiod's version.

Before I tell you about what Hesiod had to say, I'm going to give you this wonderful quote from his creation story:

Gaia, the beautiful, rose up,

Broad blossomed, she that is the steadfast base

Of all things. And fair Gaia first bore

The starry Heaven, equal to herself,

To cover her on all sides and to be

A home forever for the blessed Gods.

And now back to the story. According to Hesiod, the first beings sprang into existance without cause or explanation. After Gaia came Tartarus (the lowest level of the Underworld, also viewed as a sort of huge cave or pit) and then came Eros: Erotic Love. Chaos continues her parthenogenic streak, giving birth to Erebus and Nyx. In her sleep, Gaia gives parthenogenic birth to Uranus (the Universe, who emerges as big and powerful as Gaia) and Pontus (the Sea, and the God of the Sea). Uranus, bursting (literally) with love for Gaia (possible only by the creation of Eros, you see), showers her with fertile rain and this is how Gaia gives birth to the rest of creation (you remember, seas, mountains, etc. - we already covered this with Ovid). Gaia and Uranus also gave birth to the Titans, the three Cyclopes and the three Hundred-Armed Giants.

Creation by Her

There aren't tons of stories about Gaia. She's important, yes, and she shows up a lot, but not so much as an active participant in the story so much as a default womb and mother. She has LOTS of kids. And what really makes her special is that she can have these kids without active participation by a father. In many ways the Universe was created by her alone (okay, not really - but she did give birth to her son Uranus who then became her partner in the whole populating space thing). Once, Zeus had a wet dream at night that got Gaia pregnant, too (the child of that union was Agdistis).

There's a bunch of other mentions of her giving birth to people (especially men) - one of the most important was Erichthonius, who founded Athens.

Gaia's Children Include:

•Uranus (yes I know he was her "husband" - but he was also her son - very Oedipal isn't it?...)

•50-Headed, 100-Armed Giants: Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges

•The Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges (Cyclope means Wheel-Eyed

•The Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Cronus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys

•The Erinyes: Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megara

•Giants: born full-grown with armor and spears, ouchies for Gaia

•Meliads: otherwise known as the Ash Tree Nymphs

•Aetna, Eurybia, Nereus, Phorcys, Ceto, Thaumas, Atlas, Acheron, Antaeus, Agdistis, Erichthonius, Hyllus, Dreams, Python, the list goes on.

Don't know who your mama is? That's okay, Gaia's the default, and you can always accurately claim her. A good mythical example of this is when Pyrrha and Deucalion had to throw their mothers' bones over their shoulders!

Yay Ge!

The King Must Die

Forgive me for ripping off Mary Renault's title, but if there's any goddess the idea really relates to, I think it would be Gaia. The theory is that every year the king was ritually sacrificed (killed by a rival, sacrificed in public, or only metaphorically murdered) to renew the land and the fertility of the kingdom. I'm not really gonna get any further into that because it's not actually from any Greek myth in particular, but it does seem like at least a decent introduction to the myth in which Gaia took her most active role.

So, Gaia and Uranus had a whole bunch of babies, as described above. Uranus, like many men, did his part in creating the children, but wasn't ready to be a daddy and tried to stuff the new life back into Gaia's womb. Then he tried to keep the kids inside her by blocking the entrance. With his own genitals. Can you imagine? Well, Gaia turned around (inside?) and gave her youngest son, Cronos (the Titan) a scythe to cut off his papa's penis and free the children. As a consequence, Cronos also took over as the Big God In Charge - a role previously held by Uranus, despite the appearance that it was Gaia with the real power.

Unfortunately, despite getting how he was put into power, Cronos only repeated the cycle. He put the Giants and the Cyclopes into Tartarus (deep pit type of jail) and whenever his wife, Rhea, gave birth, he swallowed the baby. He was threatened, it appears by this whole biological process that was beyond his control. After five pregnancies and five births and five babies devoured, Rhea went to Gaia and the two conspired to keep her youngest son - Zeus - from being swallowed and then got Cronos to vomit up the other ingested gods. With the promise from Zeus that he would free the other children of Earth, Gaia supported him in overthrowing Cronos and the rule of the Titans.

Will it surprise you to learn that Zeus did not remain true to the women who made him and put him in power? Almost immediately he stuck Gaia's monstrous children back in Tartarus. And when his woman, Metis, became pregnant, he started getting worried that like father like child. But he had learned more from his mothers than they intended. Rather than try to force his mate into submission or to steal her progeny, he skipped that altogether by swallowing her! When she gave birth, it was inside his body, and the child, Athena, had to be born of HIS body. By co-opting the labor and the birth, he kept Athena from any allegiance to a mother and broke the cycle of Kings dying to maintain the proper balance of Earth. The power of fertility was usurped by the patriarchy and Gaia stopped, for the most part, involving herself in the lives of her children.

Oh Goddess, Source of Gods and Mortals,

All-Fertile, All-Destroying Gaia,

Mother of All, Who brings forth the bounteous fruits and flowers,

All variety, Maiden who anchors the eternal world in our own,

Immortal, Blessed, crowned with every grace,

Deep bosomed Earth, sweet plains and fields fragrant grasses in the nurturing rains,

Around you fly the beauteous stars, eternal and divine,

Come, Blessed Goddess, and hear the prayers of Your children,

And make the increase of the fruits and grains your constant care, with the fertile seasons Your handmaidens,

Draw near, and bless your supplicants.

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From: Greek Mythology Summary by Wikipedia

"Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of the world.[21] The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by Hesiod's Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the Erebus.[22] Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the Titans: six males and six females (Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, and Cronus); then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of [Gaia's] children"[22])castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus, persuaded by his mother, challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes, (whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.[23] The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical mythos — and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.[24] Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.[25] A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with Nyx (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.[26] The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the dead.[27]

www.familysearch.org

1. D: I249635
2. Name: Gaea [<^>v] de Gods
3. Sex: F
4. Birth: in c 1425 BC

Marriage 1 Chaos [<^>v] de Gods b: BEF 100 in c 1425 BC

Children

  1. Has Children Pontus [<^>v] de Gods

2. Has Children Uranus [<^>v] de Gods b: in c 1400 BC