Ishtar — Goddess of Love and War

She descended into the underworld to rescue her lover Tammuz, passing through seven gates and surrendering an article of clothing at each one until she stood naked before Ereshkigal, the queen of the dead. In her absence, all reproduction ceased — animals stopped mating, humans stopped loving, crops stopped growing. The world required her. Ishtar is the contradiction that sustains life: the goddess of desire and the goddess of battle, of the bedroom and the battlefield, of morning love and evening war. She is represented by the eight-pointed star. The Ishtar Gate — glazed brick blue as the sky, decorated with her sacred lion — was the most beautiful gate ever built in the ancient world.

These signs carry the eight-pointed star, the lion of Ishtar, the Ishtar Gate blue, and the dual nature of the goddess who contains everything.