Gaea

Gaea, also spelled Gaia or Gaea, is the personification of the Earth in ancient Greek religion and myth. She is one of the primordial deities that frame the cosmos and is regarded as the mother of many divine beings and living things. In Hesiod's Theogony, Gaea emerges at the dawn of creation and, with Uranus, gives birth to the twelve Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. In other traditions she is said to have produced Typhon with Tartarus. As a primeval mother, she represents the fertile earth and the supportive, life-sustaining foundations of the world. In Roman mythology her equivalent is Terra.

Gaia has influenced modern science and culture as well. The term is used in ecology and Earth system discussions through the Gaia hypothesis, formulated in the 1970s by James Lovelock (with Lynn Margulis) and positing that the biosphere and physical Earth form a complex, self-regulating system that maintains conditions conducive to life. It is a hypothesis, not a proven organism, and it has sparked debate about Earth system regulation and feedbacks.

In contemporary usage, Gaia/Gaea appears in literature, philosophy, and popular culture as a symbolic representation of the planet's interconnected systems and as an emblem of environmental awareness.