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In Green-speak, she maintains Earth’s equilibrium - even at the expense of us, the only inhabitants on the planet conscious of her existence.Ĭould she even be responsible for Covid-19?Ĭlassicist John Dillon believes so. Some environmentalists now speak of Gaia as a real presence, similar to a universal spirit or the “world soul” of Plato’s metaphysics. Today, however, the granny god is back with a vengeance, largely thanks to the scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis describes how all living organisms form part of an interconnected, self-regulating ecosystem. It’s more than 2,000 years since she was first worshipped, and back then she was eclipsed somewhat by her granddaughter Demeter - the goddess of fertility and the harvest - to whom superstitious farmers offered gifts. In short, Gaia is not a god to mess with. In a gruesome twist, she encouraged her son Kronos to castrate Ouranos and throw his genitals across the sea. One of her first offspring was Ouranos - the sky god - better known today as Uranus, who became her lover and later abuser. As “Mother Earth”, she was the second element in the evolution of the cosmos after Chaos - the primordial void, according to ancient lore.

Unlike the God of the Bible, Gaia is one of those lustful, irritable and contrary gods that populate Greek mythology. Step forward Gaia: a god that even militant atheists can respect, if not revere. Who is likely to be top dog, so to speak: Yahweh, Allah or that other Abrahamic god we know simply as God? Or is there another contender? There is no sign of religion disappearing but, in a more secular world with competing faiths and ideologies, it is an open question as to what god - if any - future generations will worship.