Gaia: Some contemporary authors discuss the living Earth as "Gaia." They consider the earth as one large ecosystem that is part of continuous processes that operate to keep the planet's temperature, oxidation state,and acidity constant while solar energy renews and sustains comfortable life conditions. Gaia is one perspective about the Earth from a long historyof definitions. The Greeks believed that in the beginning there was darkness,represented by the god, Chaos. Gaia, the earth goddess, appeared and generated life. In the 1960s, British scientist James Lovelock proposed in his book The Ages of Gaia that the evolution of species and their environment are part of environmental feedback loops. Life affects and is affected by ecological and cultural conditions. Lovelock described the earth asa single living system where living organisms evolve in interaction with their physical environments. Geophysiology is the term he coined for the study of Gaia. However, the concept of Gaia as an intelligent, sentient being was not embraced by the scientific community. In years after, the incarnation of an old metaphor of Gaia as the Earth Goddess reappeared and was made popular through publications such as Gaia, An Atlas of Planet Management by Norman Myers. These more holistic conceptions of the Earth metaphor were further investigated at conferences in 1988 and again in 1994. Out of these meetings grew dialogue and more perspectives. One perspective is chaos theory, which offers an alternative to scientific reductionism in favor of understanding how patterns of control are partof a larger scheme of chaotic phenomena.
Lovelock, J. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1979.
Lovelock, J. The Ages of Gaia, A Biography of Our Living Planet.New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1988.
Gia: In a paper by Rina Swentzell and her brother Tito Naranjo, both from Santa Clara Pueblo, the two authors declare that being a mother or gia (a Tewa pueblo term) "is the essence of pueblo thought and being. It is manifested in the family, community and religious aspects of . . . [life in the Pueblo]. It describes the ideal person and outlines the goal for that society." The Tewa term gia is further defined by Swentzell and Naranjo:
The Santa Clara Tewa word 'gia' in its most frequent and simple usage is synonymous with 'mother' . . . . It refers to a person who gives, loves, provides, protects, and assures balance and harmony--a person who gives food, life and health. According to pueblo thinking, the word is not exclusively used to designate female nurturers but rather is also applied to particular groups of males, or spiritual entities, and is even used in reference to the ultimate nurturer--the Earth. . . . The Earth is the ultimate nurturer. She is our mother, or nung be gia. We humans move in and out of her womb as told in the emergence myths of the Pueblos. She is constant,reliable, and always giving and forgiving. She protects and heals. (Swentzell,R. & Naranjo, T. (1992). Nurturing: The Gia at Santa Clara Pueblo, El Palacio, 92(1) 36.)