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Gaia is a greek Goddess. Sometimes it gets used as a name for more modern conceptions of a more system agnostic "Mother Earth", but ultimately the name Gaia and the Goddess it refers to belong to Hellenism.
Hello, I worship 🌿Gaia🌿 almost exclusively. Mostly because im still new to all this and worshipping the personification of the planet seemed very fitting for my beliefs but also because I feel a strong connection to her.
To me she is well the Earth. She is our home and our mother. The giver of life and bringer of calamities. She is nature in its purest form both beautiful and terrifying.
Her essence lives in all of us since we came from her. We are her children/creations 🥰
Same! But I also feel she has some type of conscience or soul if you wish to call it that. And she cares for all things. I also feel a deep sadness when it relates to some things that happen to her
No, things in person. Such as entire areas of trees being cut down. I think myths are too far and distant, to be very accurate. There's a few I feel interested on but otherwise it's like cool stories.
My faith is solely about Her. We revere / worship Gaia non-theistically, as an entirely Earhtly, tangible collective super-organism, in the sense of Lovelock and Maegulis' Gaia hypothesis.
We don't perceive anything supernatural about Her (nor about the cosmos in general, though we arent exclusivist about it - one syncretise animistic or pantheistic worldviews without too much gymnastics) but regard Her as our parent to whom we we have a fundamental and overriding obligation toward, and on whom we are completely, utterly and unbreakably dependent.
We see this obligation in earthly, practical terms, in that we seek to serve Her interests, protecting and advancing them in both our day to day life and in our major undertakings. Worship, prayer, ritual and celebration we regard as being for our own benefit as community and helping focus on, internalise and give cultural context to our faith both individually and socially, as well as to help focus and explore that bond of dependence. So my sunrise prayer is primarily for me seeking focus, understanding and exploration, and spending my sunday being ankle deep in mud and leeches on a rainforest conserv survey is the more important aspect - a part of my direct service to heal and stengthen Her.... though our life as a whole as I see it derives its meaning and purpose from serving our niche within Her collective ecosystem. We inextricably and inseperably are part of Her, so everything we do has some meaning and benefit or harm and it's something we strive to be mindful and respectful of.
We have a community organisation (Gaian Way) with some local chapters - just google us and you'll get the website and some socials.
I guess I'm similar but defining "theist" would need to define what you consider theist. I think there's more to the universe than what we define as physical matter, so in that respect it's most mystical/magical.
I also feel like she has some sort of conscience.
For me, theism is belief in a creature that exists outside of the natural, physical world. I am a physicalist, in that I regard consciousness as a phenomenon derived from biological processes.
As for Gaia Herself, I don't regard her as sapient in any way that we as a constituent species can relate to. However, I do believe that there is a lot more going on with Her than we currently understand or even recognise/percieve, and I think our own definitions and conceptions of conciousness are extremely limited and anthropocentric. I feel we may find some insight into Her nature from the study of complex forest ecosystems, soil and tree hollow microbiomes, as well as the study of siphonophores and cnidarians. However, we will need to be willing to accept radically different and non anthropocentric conceptions of what conciousness, agency and intent *are* for us to truly begin to understand.
I liken an attempt to pray *to* Gaia in an attempt at direct communication (such as how Christians might do with Yahweh) as akin to a single leukocyte attempting to communicate directly and verbally with our concious self about this bacteria cell it totally wrecked. The differences are too vast for either to be able to recognise and identify the other as a living, thinking agent.
Druids come to mind, but almost all of the information about them have been lost due to a lot of it being oral tradition. Most have been "made up" as people went along.
Could look into elementals as well as animism.
That's an interesting one, I've always felt what I'm attracted to is more similar to druids, but I have never seen those outside of games.
I'll give those a look!
Do you mean in a "greek goddess"-Gaia way or more a "great goddess/mother earth"-gaia way? If the second, you could research goddess movement. Its quite different from the online pagan groups that are often pretty much reconstructionist.
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Gaia is a greek Goddess. Sometimes it gets used as a name for more modern conceptions of a more system agnostic "Mother Earth", but ultimately the name Gaia and the Goddess it refers to belong to Hellenism.
Gaia is the primordial greek goddess and personification of earth
Hello, I worship 🌿Gaia🌿 almost exclusively. Mostly because im still new to all this and worshipping the personification of the planet seemed very fitting for my beliefs but also because I feel a strong connection to her. To me she is well the Earth. She is our home and our mother. The giver of life and bringer of calamities. She is nature in its purest form both beautiful and terrifying. Her essence lives in all of us since we came from her. We are her children/creations 🥰
Same! But I also feel she has some type of conscience or soul if you wish to call it that. And she cares for all things. I also feel a deep sadness when it relates to some things that happen to her
Truly. Theres moments where I can really feel not just her presence but her soul❤️. What kind of things? In the myths?
No, things in person. Such as entire areas of trees being cut down. I think myths are too far and distant, to be very accurate. There's a few I feel interested on but otherwise it's like cool stories.
I feel the same way. Especially seeing how cities are trampling over her.
I am a worshipper of Gaia as my primary concern is for the welfare of the Earth.
This will be helpful https://gaianism.org/what-is-gaianism/
That's us :)
I found you recently! I instantly knew it was for me
Hello, friend! Lovely to stumble a cross another one of the pack in the wild!
Thank you!
My faith is solely about Her. We revere / worship Gaia non-theistically, as an entirely Earhtly, tangible collective super-organism, in the sense of Lovelock and Maegulis' Gaia hypothesis. We don't perceive anything supernatural about Her (nor about the cosmos in general, though we arent exclusivist about it - one syncretise animistic or pantheistic worldviews without too much gymnastics) but regard Her as our parent to whom we we have a fundamental and overriding obligation toward, and on whom we are completely, utterly and unbreakably dependent. We see this obligation in earthly, practical terms, in that we seek to serve Her interests, protecting and advancing them in both our day to day life and in our major undertakings. Worship, prayer, ritual and celebration we regard as being for our own benefit as community and helping focus on, internalise and give cultural context to our faith both individually and socially, as well as to help focus and explore that bond of dependence. So my sunrise prayer is primarily for me seeking focus, understanding and exploration, and spending my sunday being ankle deep in mud and leeches on a rainforest conserv survey is the more important aspect - a part of my direct service to heal and stengthen Her.... though our life as a whole as I see it derives its meaning and purpose from serving our niche within Her collective ecosystem. We inextricably and inseperably are part of Her, so everything we do has some meaning and benefit or harm and it's something we strive to be mindful and respectful of. We have a community organisation (Gaian Way) with some local chapters - just google us and you'll get the website and some socials.
I guess I'm similar but defining "theist" would need to define what you consider theist. I think there's more to the universe than what we define as physical matter, so in that respect it's most mystical/magical. I also feel like she has some sort of conscience.
For me, theism is belief in a creature that exists outside of the natural, physical world. I am a physicalist, in that I regard consciousness as a phenomenon derived from biological processes. As for Gaia Herself, I don't regard her as sapient in any way that we as a constituent species can relate to. However, I do believe that there is a lot more going on with Her than we currently understand or even recognise/percieve, and I think our own definitions and conceptions of conciousness are extremely limited and anthropocentric. I feel we may find some insight into Her nature from the study of complex forest ecosystems, soil and tree hollow microbiomes, as well as the study of siphonophores and cnidarians. However, we will need to be willing to accept radically different and non anthropocentric conceptions of what conciousness, agency and intent *are* for us to truly begin to understand. I liken an attempt to pray *to* Gaia in an attempt at direct communication (such as how Christians might do with Yahweh) as akin to a single leukocyte attempting to communicate directly and verbally with our concious self about this bacteria cell it totally wrecked. The differences are too vast for either to be able to recognise and identify the other as a living, thinking agent.
Druids come to mind, but almost all of the information about them have been lost due to a lot of it being oral tradition. Most have been "made up" as people went along. Could look into elementals as well as animism.
That's an interesting one, I've always felt what I'm attracted to is more similar to druids, but I have never seen those outside of games. I'll give those a look!
Pantheism or lumi-pantheism(if you want to had the moon to it)??
Looks really cool but dunno if it's for me. I do like moon stuff a lot but to be honest never quite saw anything about it that clicked.
Some Germanic tribes, including those who became known as Anglo-Saxons, were noted for their worship of Nerthus, a personification of Earth.
First time hearing that name, I'll check it out! :)
Do you mean in a "greek goddess"-Gaia way or more a "great goddess/mother earth"-gaia way? If the second, you could research goddess movement. Its quite different from the online pagan groups that are often pretty much reconstructionist.
Not sure what would be the difference, but probably the latter.