by John Devera

Created on: June 17, 2009

Gaia is arguably the most important of the goddess images in Greek mythology. She is the child of Chaos. Her name means earth, in its most basic sense, but it additionally adds the sense of grandmother. So, rather than being "mother earth," a position for which Demeter seems more suited, she is more of the cthonic version of a "grandmother earth." Gaia, pulls out of her self the god Pontus, who is, more or less, figurative of the Mediterranean Sea. She also gave birth to Uranus, although ancient Greeks usually considered Uranus as self-generating power. Uranus is the god of sky and space. So, Gaia, the earth grandmother, pulls the sky over her as a kind of shield or security blanket. She then takes Uranus, her son, as a consort, something that the pantheon of Olympian deities took to heart as a regular and established practice.

She and Uranus give birth to Oceanus, the world ocean. She also gives birth to Rhea, who is very much a mother earth goddess, and the mother of Demeter. She gives birth to Phoebe, the feminine quality associated with the moon. She brought forth a lot of titans and some very horrific monsters. At one point, Uranus condemns some of her more terrifying children to hell, which of course is in her womb, if you think about it. She makes a weapon out of a god-ripping stone, and calls on her son Cronus to castrate Uranus.

But Gaia isn't through with Uranus yet. She takes the blood and semen from his castration and generates more children: the Erinyes, the Gigantes and even the Meliae. From the testicles which were thrown into the sea springs Aphrodite, the most lovely of the gods. She continues to a most promiscuous goddess and has children by several gods including Tartarus, Pontus, and most remarkably, even Elana, Zeus lover who was hidden in the earth.

Gaia was a most potent goddess in the Greek pantheon; to swear by Gaia was to commit oneself to the most inviolate of oaths. Her depiction if classical art always associated her with both her role as a mother as well as a figure of the earth. She was shown as a matronly woman, as opposed to the more sexually realized Aphrodite or even Demeter. She was also shown as leaning heavily on the earth, or rising from the earth.

Gaia has become important in modern New Age and crypto-Pagan circles as one of the female goddesses, usually associated with the crone aspect, whereas Rhea, Demeter or Cybele might be the mother goddess, and Persephone or Aphrodite might fill the role of virgin goddess. But Gaia often shares her nature as the crone goddess with the other cthonic incarnation of womanhood, Hecate, who is far more popular as a figure of the crone because of her association with the occult, magic and witchcraft. After all, even Shakespeare, in Macbeth, mentions Hecate.

Learn more about this author, John Devera.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.