GAIA PAGE
GAIA or GAEA was the name give by the ancient Greek people to the planet Earth herself. In a spiritual sense, Gaia was considered our original Mother. Greek legends told of how all living things came into being as a result of Gaia joining in union with the sky. Many organic compounds, such as those of which DNA is composed, are found in comets and other extraterrestrial bodies.
From a scientific standpoint, much was known about our home to ancient peoples. Around 300 B.C. Eratosthenes considered Gaia to be a sphere, and calculated her circumference with remarkable accuracy, missing the modern accepted figure of 40,000 kilometers by only a few percent. At about the same time, Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to India, wrote that the Brahmins also believed the Earth to be spherical in shape. In modern times, the 'Gaia Hypothesis' has promoted the idea that our Earth has functioned in a manner similar to a living organism, and maintained a habitat favorable for life to flourish, despite variations in external conditions such as increasing solar output with time. Fossil evidence indicates that life appeared on Earth almost immediately after she became cool enough to support life. If modern estimates are correct in stating the age of Earth as 4.6 billion years, then recognizable life has existed for more than 3.5 billion of those years. Our bodies are built of atoms which we take in either through our lungs or digestive system. Almost all of these atoms came originally from Earth. In a very real sense, Gaia is our Mother.
