In Greek myth, Gaia is the earth before she is a figure: the first ground from which the gods themselves emerge. She gives birth to Uranus, the sky, and to the mountains and sea. From her line come the Titans, the Olympians, and the older powers that shaped the mythic world before it had settled into order.

She is not merely maternal in the softened sense. Gaia is origin, body, landscape, prophecy, anger, and endurance. She creates, shelters, conspires, and survives the violence of her own descendants. Her power is not distant or decorative. It is underfoot, ancient, and difficult to exhaust.