Mother Nature – Mythic Persons #1

My Lady Yggdrasil

Until now I've been focusing on mythological species of humanoids or mythic peoples. This is my first mythic persons post. The myth or personification of Mother Nature has been on my mind lately as I continue to try to define this blog and my brand as an author. Also, depending on whether you look at nature goddesses/ personifications as separate entities or conflate them into different names for the same entity, they are so prevalent that they are practically a population of their own. 

Swelling Lilac Bud

I started my research with Mother Nature, but that is a generally shallow research topic due to the vagueness of this metaphoric reference. Mostly, Mother Nature is an enlightenment replacement for an unexamine-able and undissect-able God, because nature can be put under the microscope. In the Wikipedia article on Mother Nature there are some medieval references to the feminizing and degrading of nature to give humans permission to exploit and study it, “a great … pregnant automation.” [Man, of man! This is enough to give my feminazi streak a nightmare!]

Crocuses -First Flowers From My Garden This Year

I found the bottom of the research in a few sentences and had to move on to Mother Earth and Earth Goddesses. Aren't paleolithic Earth goddess statuettes fascinating? One called Venus of Berekhat Ram may have even been made by Homo erectus. There are some seriously deep connections for this reverence of life and fertility.

Later culture seem to each have their own Earth Goddess. I can understand the prevalence. After the agricultural revolution the success of the crops each year determined life or death for early people.

Crocuses from my Garden This Year

Here are some examples of Earth Goddesses/personifications from around the world:

Earth Mother – Common (fertility/motherhood)
Mahimata – Indian (Great Mother)
Gayatri – Hindu (mother of all creation)
Bhumi – Buddhism (mother deity of the Earth)
Phra Mae Thorani – Southeast Asian (Earth)

Happy Spring Moss

Nokomis – Algonquin (grandmother)
Spider Mother – Native American (Earth)
Pachamama – Andean (revered Earth mother)
Papatuanuku – Maori (Earth mother)
Ki {Gi, Ge, Qi, Qe}– Sumerian (Earth)
Ninhursag – Sumerian (lady of the sacred mountain)
Nintu {Mami, Mamma, – Sumerian (lady of birth)
Arura {Aroura} – Mycenaean (arable land/plough)
Ma-ka – Mycenaean (Earth)
Gaia – Greek (Earth)
Rhea – Greek (Earth)
Demeter – Greek (harvest)
Kubau {Hepa, Heva [Eve]} – Akkadian (mother of life)
Cybele {Kubala} – Phygian (mother of the mountain)
Inanna / Ishtar – Mesopotamian (nature)
Jord {Fjorgyn, Hlodyn} – Norse (Earth)
Danu {Danann, Don} – Celtic (mother/water/land)
Zeme – Slavic (mother of Earth)
Mut – Egyptian (source of all life)

I'm just scratching the surface of the number of names in different cultures for Earth - Nature - Mother of All Life Goddesses / personifications. There are lots more than I can really include here.

Questions:
1. Having just passed the International Day of Forests and coming up to Earth Day and Arbor Day next month, does spring make you think of Mother Nature like it does me?

Another Crocus in the Sunshine

2. For a interesting mythology to science crossover, what do you think of the Gaia Hypothesis that states that the Earth functions as a single big organism maintaining it's own homeostasis?

If you want to look into this bit of science check out Gaia Hypothesis  for a Wikipedia article and Sulfur May Hold the Key to Gaia Theory for a more recent (2012) further study.