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Gaia
Gaia (Earth) is the name of a Greek goddess also called
Ge, from whose name words like geology and geog-
raphy are derived. The ninth-century B.C.E. Homeric
Hymn calls Gaia mother of all, eldest of all beings,
while the Theogony of eighth-century B.C.E. Greek poet
Hesiod describes the simultaneous birth of Eros (love . . .
breaks the limbs strength) and broad-breasted Gaia,
immovable foundation of all things forever. Gaia
immediately began to reproduce, without any sweet act
of love, her children, including the mountains and seas.
Her most-beloved parthenogenetic child was Uranus, the
sky, with whom she mated to produce Oceanus (ocean),
Themis (justice), Mnemosyne (memory), and the other
divine beings called the Titans.
Other classical writers offer creation myths in which
Earth is not the primary actor. Pliny describes a primordial
goddess, Eurynome, who whirled into existence a wind
from which she created the serpent Opion, with whom she
produced an egg from which the world hatched. Orphic
literature calls the primordial mother Nyx (night), con-
sort of the wind. But the myth of Gaia was favored by
authors including Homer, Euripedes, and Pindar. Such
frequent literary use does not prove that the Greeks gave
priority to the Earth-goddess as the universal creative
matrix; there is little known of Greek rituals to Gaia, who
is presumed by some to be a pre-Hellenic divinity barely
absorbed into the later pantheons.
Contemporary awareness of Gaia dates to 1969, when
physician and inventor James Lovelock, researching
with Dian Hitchcock ways of determining from afar the
probability of life on Mars, argued that the red planets
atmospheric equilibrium its elements rarely changing in
proportion to each other showed it unlikely to host life,
while Earths atmospheric signature is disequilibrium.
When Lovelock expanded this observation into a vision
of the Earth as a self-regulating system, his neighbor and
friend, Nobel prize-winning novelist William Golding,
named the hypothesis Gaia. Prominent biochemist Lynn
Margulis brought her knowledge to bear on the emergent
theory and is now, with Lovelock, generally recognized as
its co-founder. The hypothesis has inspired many con-
temporary theologians and thealogians, its founders
remaining aloof from, although not publicly disapproving
of, such religious use of their ideas.
The non-mechanical vision of the Earth had been
previously suggested by the Scottish founder of geology,
James Hutton, in the eighteenth century, and again by
nineteenth-century Ukrainian scientist Vladimir Vernad-
sky. Like those forebears, Lovelock and Margulis argued
that the Earth is understood better as a living being
than as a machine. Rock, sea, cloud, tree, animal are, they
argued, in continual and complex relation, with each
affecting and subtly altering the others. Thus the exchange
of planetary atmospheric gasses can be compared to an
individuals breath, the water system to the circulation of
blood, the ozone layer to the skin. Biota, atmosphere,
ocean, and soil interact through feedback loops to
maintain conditions conducive to life, a process known as
homeostasis.
Both living Earth and great machine are metaphors
that can be, and have been, understood literally. Lovelock
and Marguliss use of the ancient goddess name drew both
fame and noteriety: general scientic scorn as well as an
enthusiastic (although sometimes misinformed) embrace
by nature mystics and citizens concerned about ecological
issues. The controversial hypothesis often stripped of the
name of the goddess to become Earth System Science
or Geophysiology has gained increasing respect among
some scientists but is derided by others as lacking
sufcient scientic rigor.
While scientists debated, spiritual seekers embraced
Gaia, often arguing that it descends from a primal religion.
Paleolithic and other early human artifacts especially the
tiny but robust gurines called Venuses are described
as expressions of early worship of Earths fecundity.
The poetic language of Native American spiritual leaders
like Claude Kuwanijuma (Hopi), who said that The Earth
remembers; the stones remember, similarly support
contentions that tribal people sustain a connection or
participation mystique (the term is from French anthro-
pologist Levy-Bruhl) with the Earth. The sense of being
part of a universal unity is traditionally associated with
religious mysticism, which Evelyn Underhill and William
James both describe as an experience of timelessness and
a lack of boundary between self and world.
That Lovelock chose the name of a goddess for his
living Earth derives from a consistent Western bias
toward seeing the Earth as feminine. Under the inuence
of Greek Orphism, Persian Manicheism and other dualistic
sects, Earth was set in opposition to heaven. Other
oppositions followed: evil/good, esh/spirit, dark/light,
moon/sun, with the former typically associated with the
Earth and the female, the latter with the heavens and the
male. The vision of the Earth as feminine attached itself to essentialist visions of femininity, so that the Earth was
often transformed into a maternal, nurturing being. Some
theorists, such as Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carolyn
Merchant, and Shirley Nicholson, have turned this dual-
ism on its head, arguing for an ecofeminist view of nature
that claims traditionally feminine values (relationship,
cooperation) as more natural than those traditionally
accepted as masculine (domination, individualism). Rather
than domination of the Earth by humanity, Gaian eco-
feminists call for a modest recognition of humanitys place
within a living Earth system.
The widespread public acceptance of the Gaia hypoth-
esis even while scientists argued over its merits led to
controversy in established religions, for acceptance of
Gaia implies a pantheism or polytheism unacceptable to
believers in established monotheisms. Yet some Christian
thinkers, notably the Catholic monk Thomas Berry, see no
opposition between honoring the Earth and worshipping
a transcendent divinity, although such thinkers typically
enforce the traditional distinction between creator and
creation. Non-theistic Buddhism has had an easier time
with the Gaian vision, with the conception of sangha
(community) easily enlarged to include the community of
earthly life and that of dharma (duty) embracing eco-
logical responsibility.
Less orthodox religious thinkers have eagerly explored
the philosophical possibilities of the Gaia hypothesis;
most prominent has been William Irvin Thompson of the
Lindisfarne Association, who has articulated a Gaian
politics and economics. Many neo-pagan groups in the
U.S. and European countries employ Gaian vocabulary,
including the Unitarian-Universalist Gaian Community
of Kansas and the Gaia House meditation center in rural
Devon, England. Some neo-pagans specically employ
the name of the Greek goddess in their ceremonies, while
others, especially the ReClaiming Collective founded by
Starhawk and the ReFormed Congregation of the Goddess
established by Jade River, make ecological awareness a
primary part of their worldview. Finally, a general-
interest, Pagan, ecological magazine bears the name
PanGaia and declares itself dedicated to an Earth-wise
spirituality.
Patricia Monaghan
Further Reading
Badinger, Allan Hunt. Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays
in Buddhism and Ecology. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press,
1990.
Devereaux, Paul, John Steel and David Kubrin. Earth-
Mind: Communicating with the Living World of Gaia.
Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1989.
Jade. To Know. Chicago: Delphi Press, 1994.
Joseph, Lawrence E. Gaia: The Growth of an Idea. New
York: St. Martins Press, 1990.
Lovelock, James. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our
Living Earth. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Nicholson, Shirley and Brenda Rosen. Gaias Hidden Life:
The Unseen Intelligence of Nature. Wheaton, IL: Quest
Books, 1992.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Gaia and God: An Ecof-
eminist Theology of Earth Healing. San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
Thompson, William Irwin, ed. Gaia 2: The New Science of
Becoming. Hudson, NY: The Lindisfarne Press, 1991.
See also: Berry, Thomas; Environmental Ethics; Epic
of Evolution; Holism; Gaia Foundation and Earth Com-
munity Network; Gaian Pilgrimage; Lovelo