The pentacle is an ancient symbol that originated in the Tigris–Euphrates region about 6,000 years ago. It’s also the first star Marie Lesoway learned to draw, when she was in Grade 2. Marie filled many a nighttime sky with pentacles in her elementary school art projects.

In the 6th century BCE, Pythagoras and his followers used the pentacle to symbolize mind–body harmony.

The Gnostics and Manichaeans used the pentacle to represent the five elements: light, air, wind, fire and water. (Not earth, interestingly.)

Christian iconography associates the pentacle with the five stigmata of Christ, and because of its closed form, with the coming together of the alpha and omega—the beginning and the end—in Christ.