Welcome back to Everyday Tarot! Season 16 is devoted to queer deities, and today, we turn to Ishtar—Babylonian goddess of love, war, and desire, the Queen of Heaven, the Holy Whore.

What we explore in this episode:

• The myth of Ishtar

• Ishtar as a queer deity

• Tarot cards resonant with Ishtar: The High Priestess, The Star

The Myth of IshtarIshtar—also known as Inanna or Astarte—was worshiped as the Queen of Heaven, ruler of fertility, desire, and the cycles of life and death. She appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh as a radiant goddess of both love and warfare, capable of granting abundance or unleashing chaos.

In one of her most famous myths, Ishtar descends into the Underworld to rescue her lover Tammuz. Her absence halts all fertility on earth u ...