Human beings are accustomed to think of or visualize Gaia in the form of a woman. If we are at all self-critical about this, it seems obvious that we are committing an anthropomorphic projection. In this case “gynemorphic” would be the more correct term: picturing a cosmic presence in the form of a woman. Is there something wrong with picturing Gaia in this way? Yes, there is. Paradoxically, the error consists in thinking that the gynemorphic image is a mere projection.
Gaia may be understood in three aspects: the Pleromic Aeon, the Earth Goddess and embodied Nature. The first is a cosmic entity, a Divinity who belongs to the plural Godhead located (for imagination’s sake) at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The second aspect is Gaia in the form of the Goddess who oversees the earth. The third aspect is Gaia in the form of the earth, her embodiment in the terrestrial habitat named after her. Since the proposal of the Gaia Hypothesis by Lovelock and Margulis in 1979, it has become fashionable to imagine Gaia in the third aspect, but the Mysteries of the Magna Mater invoked Gaia in the second aspect. In the perspective of the Mystery Experience involving direct communion with Gaia-Sophia, it is utterly mistaken to assume that we, human beings, project on Gaia the form of woman. The astonishing truth is, women have her form. This is why the form of woman, the female anatomy, is so strange and powerful, so mysterious in ways that male anatomy is not.
