GAIA
Greek Mythology
Mother Earth/Earth Mother
All life began with her
Goddess of Death
GAIA is the mother earth. She gives gifts of fertility and abundance. She was not only the mother of all and the nourisher of children, but also the goddess of death, returning all things back to her.
GAIA was the earth that gave birth to the sky god, OURANOS. This sky god was her son but also her husband as well. It was because of their passion and love making that their children could not emerge from the womb.
One day one of GAIA’S children, the youngest CRONOS, used a sickle that his mother conceived to cut off the penis of his father from within the womb. This separated the sky and earth and weakened the sky. From the blood of this event, GAIA conceived FURIES; they are avenging goddesses that seek out murderers.
CRONOS believed that one of his own children were going to kill him and take his thrown. And because of this, he began eating each one of his children as they were born. GAIA gave RHEA the advice to save ZEUS by wrapping a stone in cloth and feeding it to CRONOS instead of his on child as he had done with all of the other children before him. ZEUS was then raised in secrecy in Crete. He returned to save his brothers and sisters from the belly of his father.
It is also possible that GAIA saved ZEUS from the same fate as his father, being destroyed by his own child, if GAIA hadn’t warned that a child born from METIS would replace him as supreme god. So, ZEUS swallowed METIS and later the goddess ATHENA sprang from his forehead.