03/17/2026
Happy Festival of Astarte!
Astarte, Lady of Byblox, is one of the oldest forms of the Great Goddesses in the Middle East. In Egypt she is known as Hathor, for the Mycenean's she is known as Demeter, and in Cyprus she is known as Aphrodite.
Her shrine that is located in Byblox is dated all the way back to the Neolithic time and her worship flourished during the Bronze Age. She was a Creation, preserving, as well as a destroying Goddess - she is a timeless example of a true sovereign Goddess of the world. She is all about regeneration - creation, destruction of the old in order to create the new. She has also been associated with Kali. Astarte reminds me of Pluto, he destroys in order to create. She is the embodiment of change, just as the Earth, Spring, summer, fall , and then winter...Sex, birth, life, death, and then rebirth.
For this concept, she was acknowledged as ruling the spirits of the dead who lived in Summerland (heaven) who were bodies of light. Astarte, also known as Astroarche, is the Queen of the Stars and the Mother to all Souls in the heavens, and the Moon? It is her children, the star children, that surround the Moon with their astral bodies. This is believed by many Occultists that the word astrol is the original connotation of the word starlight.
Unfortunately, during the wiping away of Goddess worship, Astarte-Ashroeth (Ishtar) was transformed into a demon/devil by Christain writers as they felt that any deities that were mentioned in the Bible that were not Yahweh from a denizen from hell. What’s more interesting is that many scholars who really traced and understood the mysteries of the Great Goddess Astarte recognized that she was an extension, or prototype of the virgin Mary. For the Semites, on the 25th of December it was the Great Oriental Goddess named the Heavenly Virgin or Heavenly Goddess is a version of Astarte.
Astarte is the Hellenized version of Ishtar, whom many confuse with Ostara. I am sure many of you have seen the different pictures claiming that Easter comes from Ishtar and this is completely wrong. Therefore, Astarte, Astoreth a form of Ishtar, has nothing to do with Easter.
ALL HAIL ASTARTE! GREAT GODDESS OF THE STARS AND QUEEN OF HEAVEN!
We honor you on this day! May you bless us with fertility and the willingness to shed that which no longer belongs with us. Bless us with your shining light that we may all remember we are star beings. She who reminds us that All that dies shall be reborn, bless us with the knowing that we are too creators and we are the magicians of our lives.
Blessings!
My reference is The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker
