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Gaea is the Earth
goddess in Greek mythology, Terra Mater, who came out of Chaos and
gave birth as she slept to her son Uranus (Ouranos), the Sky god.
He showered fertile rain upon her secret clefts as he gazed down
fondly upon her from the mountains, and she bore grass, flowers,
trees, and birthed the astounding array of birds and beasts to
populate them. The fertile rain of Uranus also made the rivers
flow and lakes and seas came into being when the hollow places
filled with water.
She mated with her son and husband Uranus to produce the Titans,
who joined their brothers in prison. First came the hundred-handed
Hecatonchires, the giants Briareus, Gyges and Cottus. The three
one-eyed Cyclopes were next, master smiths and builders of
gigantic walls. Their names were Brontes, Steropes and Arges.
But their relationship was so passionate, and the embrace of
Uranus and Gaea (Sky and Earth) was so overwhelming, that their
offspring could not emerge from her womb.
You see, Uranus was afraid that one of his Titan children would
end up overthrowing him and taking over rule of the Universe. The
Titans were thus imprisoned by Uranus in Tartarus, a region of the
Underworld. It was said that it would take a falling anvil nine
days to reach its bottom.
This caused Mother Earth great grief, so she conceived a great
sickle that one of her children, Cronus, used to severe his
father's genitals. The god Uranus was emasculated and the Sky
separated from the Earth. From the blood of Uranus that fell on
her, Gaea conceived the Eirynes (Furies), the avenging goddesses
who pursued and punished murderers and evil-doers. The nymphs of
the ash-tree, called the Meliae, also sprang from that blood.
Uranus thus faded from the mythological scene and Cronus married
his sister Rhea, becaming supreme ruler of the Universe. This was
regarded by the Greeks as the Golden Age of the Titans. But Cronus
was just as paranoid as his father, and in turn he swallowed all
the children he fathered with his wife Rhea, afraid that they
would do to him as he did to Uranus. On the advice of Gaea, Rhea
gave Cronus a stone wrapped in baby blankets, and the
gullible Cronus "swallowed" the ruse, instead of his baby boy
Zeus. Eventually Zeus grew up to free his swallowed siblings and
with their help indeed overthrew Cronus and became the supreme
Olympian.
Gaea may have saved Zeus from a fate similar to his father's when
she warned him that any child born by Metis ('Thought'), whom Zeus
desired as wife, would grow up to supplant him as King of the
gods. Heeding Gaea's advice, Zeus swallowed Metis and in due time
the goddess Athena sprang from his head.
Mother Earth even proved helpful to Zeus in his fight versus Atlas
and the Titans, shortly after taking power. However, she and Zeus
parted company once her twenty-four sons, the Giants, attacked
Olympus. (Many claim that this battle represented the last attempt
to reassert female leadership over the heavens, symbolizing the
war fought between those who preferred matriarchal (women-ruled)
philosophies over those who wanted patriarchal ones.)
Even though Gaea was one of the most prominent figures in the
earliest myths, Mother Earth suffered a greatly diminished status
with the eventual transfer of power to patriarchal (men-ruled)
societies. She drifts between being an individual character and a
personified conceptual entity representing the original life force
of the earth.
Gaea appeared in minor roles in a handful of
later myths, but eventually the shift to Zeus' rule saw him being
assigned most of her responsibilities and accomplishments. Mother
Earth came to be perceived as more of a concept or metaphysical
notion than an active goddess. She was never part of the
Olympians' council of twelve, up on Mount Olympus, because she was
considered too old and set in her ways to suit the new breed of
gods..
The story of the separation between Earth and Sky is an ancient
one, found in a variety of forms in West Asian mythology. Gaea
seems to have started as a Neolithic earth-mother worshipped
before the Indo-European invasion that eventually led to the
Hellenistic civilization. She
is the oldest of the goddesses and the personification of the
"All-mother", or "Goddess of All Things", she who gives and takes
life.
Gaea's children with Uranus are the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the
hundred-handed giants called the Hecatonchires. With Tartarus she
is the mother of the monster Typhon and the Giants. Her
Roman counterpart is Tellus,
the fertile soil.
While much Greek literature uses the name Gaea, Ge, Gaia or Gea,
most modern readers will recognize her as Mother Earth.
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