http://www.gaia.com

Many of us love to do social networking over the internet. It’s a fun way to make new friends and connect with people who have the same interests that we have. It’s also a great way to promote businesses and organizations. Myspace and Facebook are among some of the favorite networking sites on the internet. But I decided that I wanted something a little bit more; I wanted something that was spiritually oriented. A community that had the potential to nurture both my mind and spirit.

Then I found www.gaia.com. Gaia.com (formerly www.zaadz.com) is a website dedicated to spiritual and physical wellness. In fact, their motto is “Let’s change the world.”

On their front page you’ll find links to Health & Wellness, Cinema Circle (a website that reviews spiritually oriented movies), Mind/Body Clubs (which so far is just a link to a yoga website), Illumination University (which offers cyber classes on spiritual and wellness topics), Gaia Content (which takes you to a set of links including Spirituality, Environment, Health & Wellness, Conscious Media, and Make a Difference) and then of course the Gaia Community and a personalized My Gaia page.

The community itself is similar to many other networking sites, but has a very spiritual feel to it. If you create your own personal page, along with the typical “about me” stuff, there is also a space for goals. I really like this aspect as I see them immediately when I sign in to my Gaia page. There is also a place for blogging, posting movies and photos, and chatting. And of course, there’s the friends. So far I just have a few, but am looking forward to meeting more.

There are also what are called “pods,” which are basically forums or groups. Just about every topic from Green Environmentalism to Angels is available. I’ve joined a few of the groups and have found the people to be very friendly.

I found their community guidelines to be very appealing: 1) Be yourself – be authentic and speak from your heart. 2) Don’t be anyone else – which means don’t steal other people’s stuff and don’t be an evil twin (this one made me chuckle a bit as this behavior is rampant on some other networking sites) and 3) Follow the Golden Rule.

On Gaia, it’s also possible to earn what are called “seeds,” which is basically a point system. The seeds help the user to express appreciation for friendly and helpful members and inspiring content. You can also use seeds to flag inappropriate postings or blogs so that the moderators can be made aware of them.

One of my favorite things about Gaia is the positive energy that permeates the site - it's filled with inspirational and uplifting messages. On the front page there are word banks with words like “consciousness,” “dreams,” “God,” “Inspire,” and “Love” posted. There is also a section for inspirational quotes.

Though I’m still getting used to navigating Gaia, I don’t see that it will be any more difficult to use than any other networking site. I am thoroughly enjoying my time there, and plan on sticking around a while. If you pop in for a visit, come by my page: http://deannajoseph.gaia.com/ and say “Hi.”