Istar

In my dream I was walking through what seemed to be a very ancient temple. However, the temple was not decayed. It was dark, full of long corridors lit by torches. I was accompanied by two men, older than myself, who I knew to be priests. They were wearing robes that were orange and red, and looked almost like velvet. I don't recall any conversation, but we were all in a great hurry to go somewhere. I seemed to know the way, the priests with me didn't really act as guides.

We arrived at a large crater in the temple, maybe 100 ft wide by 100 ft across. It seemed as if the temple was built around this specific place. To the right of the crater was a large screen, very intricate, going from the floor to the roof, which was also about 100 ft high. The priests stood on either side of me. A loud noise could be heard growing from within the crater, something riseing to the surface. At this sound the priests fell to the floor and covered thier faces, they began speaking in a language I don't know.

Then, a gigantic serpent like figure with four arms and a diamond shaped head rose up out of the crater behind the screen, it's head almost touching the roof of the temple and it's bottom half still well below ground. The priests seemed terrified but I felt no fear. It then extended one of it's arms and revealed the Goddess Istar in it's palm, and as it did so I clearly heard her name, although in my dream it sounded like "Ishtar" instead of "Istar". She was crouched on all fours, with jet black skin. She was adorned with golden jewelery and a golden mask that covered the top half of her face, shaped like a lion. She roared and twitched, and was beautiful, erotic and terrifying all at once.

I had this dream about a month ago and it is one that will stay with me forever. I have a few others like that, but dreams like this are few and far between. I remember it as vividly as if it had just happened. The funny thing is that prior to this I had no special connection to Istar, in fact the next morning I was looking through my books for "Ishtar" because that was how it sounded in the dream. But Istar did in fact fit the bill in the lion symbology as well as her demeanor.