The Mythology of Gaia

Gaia was created out of the void and her story is the oldest of all the myths.  Before the Greeks firmly established the patriarchal social structure the Great Goddess ruled over her domains:  Earth, Sky, Moon, Planets, Oceans and the Underworld.  She created the sky god, Uranos. Later they mated, producing the Monsters, the Cyclops and the Titans.  Many esoteric teachings convey the belief or assumption that alien beings from the sky (Ouranos) came to Earth (Mother Earth) and mated with primates and subsequently, humans evolved.

As the Age of Aries ascended, patriachal worship began to find its place and as this transition occurred, the Hittites and Indo-European Greeks from 3,000 to 1,000 BCE ritually married their masculine deities to various forms of Gaia.  Matriarchal worship gave way to patriarchal worship beginning in Mycenaean times and it supplanted by force throughout the subsequent ages of classical Greece until it barely existed. During this time of Goddess worship, the Age of Taurus, there were no wars, no inter-tribal violence and violent crime among citizens was almost unknown.

The Egyptians were fairly balanced with gods and goddesses in their worship system, but the Babylonians were patriarchal.  Babylonian influence permeated the Middle East and Mesopotamian areas, greatly influencing the cultures there.  The patriarchs of Judaism, who were originally from Chaldea, recorded in the book Genesis, the myth of a singular male creator god who created a human man in his own image.  Realizing his human creation needed a way to re-create himself, a female counterpart, the woman, was created.  The male god then placed his innocent creations in a garden and told them not to eat of a certain plant or tree. This woman then was tricked into eating what was forbidden by a third party creation that took the form of a familiar animal. That myth has been the basis for millenia of abuse and subjugation of women.  As a matter of self-preservation the patriarchal system through the religious belief systems that exist through this day have condemned the matriarchal belief system as akin to "Devil worship".  The Goddess was effectively striped of all her glory and her power and cast back into the void.  But a remnant remained faithful and despite all attempts to the contrary, worship of the female creator did not totally disappear.

The Christian Church, which displaced the power of Rome, sprang from the roots of  the Judaic belief in the one father-god concept.  However, they placed increasing emphasis on Mary, the mother of a son who was half god, half man, which draws from the Greek pantheon in the examples of Hercules or Dionysus, etc.  At about 1,000 CE there was an emphasis shift from the image of a dying son to the divine mother and the Jungian view is that this is a manifestation of goddess worship.  The practice of praying to the Virgin Mary and other female saints to protect or to intervene in ones behalf can be thought of as another form of goddess worship.

Gaia is depicted as a pregnant, rotund, large breasted woman.  Her figure celebrates life.  Gaia is the mother of all life, and worship of her was a celebration of creation and life.  In the burying of the dead it is evident that from the words used in the burial ceremonies that our physical bodies come from Gaia  (earth) and to Gaia (earth) we return in death.

It has already been recounted in the sections on Uranus and Saturn how the sky god, Ouranos, (Uranus) tyrannize some of his children, and Gaia convinced her son Cronus (Saturn) to put an end o Ouranoss actions.  Cronus ambushed his father and castrated him, ending his generative power and setting in motion the freeing of his older, more primitive siblings.

Those who understand the mythology of Gaia believe Gaia once again is imploring her children to stop the abuse of her creation: the oceans, waterways, land and atmosphere.  The Gaia Hypothesis, as promulgated by biologist James Lovelock and others, maintains that our planet is a living, breathing organism and that ach singular act upon the Earth has consequences on every part of the Earth.

The physical world is ruled by Saturn, the physical son of Uranus who rules the industrial world. Uranus was discovered in 1781, at the beginning of the Industrial Age.  Taurus is the suggested ruler of Earth, astrologically.  The natural polarity of Uranus is Earth.  Uranus is concerned with the intellectual, cerebral matters, which is why it is connected with science and technology.  Uranus is also the planet of inspiration.  This inspiration can only happen when Uranus is deeply linked to an intuitive feminine polarity.  Gaia is that polarity.  The Sun is also considered a polarity.  In esoteric mythology Sagittarius is ruled by Earth.

When Earth is placed in the natal chart it is always 180 from the Sun.  this polarity point is our missing half, what we unconsciously seek to make ourselves whole.  For example, a Leo is not only attracted to an Aquarian, but NEEDS what Aquarius has to offer to achieve wholeness in him/herself.  It works the same way for the Sun and Earth polarity.

The Sun/Earth polarity can identify specific areas of healthiness or disease.  If a planet opposes the Sun and conjuncts the Earth that conjunction can aid in the healing process.  Aspects to the Sun/Earth polarity are crucial in defining the energy that is at work.

It is beneficial to place Gaia/Earth in out charts to help clients get a better understanding of the polarity between Earth and Sun and to educate ourselves on the way they work together to unite mind and spirit, creating the grounding we all so desperately seek either consciously or unconsciously.

As we see the Sun and Earth work together to give us a picture of the unity between mind and spirit within the individual, it is interesting to consider the unity of the male and female aspects of the creative energy flow that unites spirit (God) and body (Goddess).  One without the other is only half and indeed cannot exist of its own accord.  For completeness there must be a unity between them and this unity is far greater than the addition of two singular entities.  That the God/Goddess is a Unity is a truth, regardless of mans acceptance of it.

Sources:

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

Mythic Astrology: Archetype Powers in the Horoscope by Ariel Guttman and Kenneth Johnson.