What is GAIA anyway?

GAIA, The earth mother, is the Greek goddess of the Earth. Many Neopagans actively worship Gaia. Beliefs regarding Gaia vary, ranging from the common Wiccan belief that Gaia is the Earth (or in some cases the spiritual embodiment of the earth, or the Goddess of the Earth), to the broader Neopagan belief that Gaia is the goddess of all creation, a Mother Goddess from which all other gods spring. Gaia is sometimes thought to embody the planets and the Earth, and sometimes thought to embody the entire universe. Worship of Gaia is varied, ranging from prostration to druidic ritual.


The Gaia Hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism, which was proposed by John Lovelock. There are many versions of the original hypothesis, such as, Influential Gaia asserts that biota have a substantial influence over certain aspects of the abiotic world, such as temperature and the composition of the atmosphere. Another, Teleological Gaia, asserts that the atmosphere is kept in homeostasis, not just by the biosphere, but by and for the biosphere. Homeostatic Gaia asserts that the biota influence the abiotic world, and do so in a way that is stabilizing, by negative feedback linkages. Finally, Co-evolutionary Gaia asserts that the biota influence their abiotic environment, and that the environment in turn influences the evolution of the biota by Darwinian process.

Sources:

Mercatante, A. S., & Dow, J. R. (2004). The facts on file encyclopedia of world mythology and legend (2nd ed.). New York: Facts on File.
Kirchner, J.W. 1991. The Gaia hypothesis: Are they testable? Are they useful? In Schneider, S. (ed.) Scientists on Gaia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)