I have totems come and go but two have been with me consistently: the bird and the spider.

Birds have all kinds of meanings for me and it would take me forever to explain my association with them. I will say that when I called on my guide in a lucid dream it came as a white dove.

As a very small child, my siblings and I were left in the so-called care of a woman who so despised infants that she made us use the outside toilet that was infested with spiders of all sizes. If we needed to go to the toilet, we were reqired to await her Ladyship's pleasure. Then would come the inevitable fumbling of tiny fingers with buttoned corderoy dungarees and the panic caused by an insistent bladder and potential shame. The final challenge was to get the whole exercise over with as quickly as possible so as to avoid an extended encounter with the spiders.

Eventually, I learnt to take my time down there. At least I'd be outside away from the droning soap operas and cigarette smoke. I started to find the spiders interesting and gradually came to associate them with good luck. My mother had told me about money spiders and I thought they were cute, so why were these other spiders so bad? I liked snails, and ladybugs and preying mantis, it wasn't a great leap to like spiders too and, eventually, I began to see spiders as good omens. Still do.

Snakes and rats also operate as harbingers for me. Snakes are good; rats are not. This sounds terrible, but my dog has twice killed a rat on our walks and each time I've had a run of good fortune afterwards. On my first actual teaching day where I currently work, a rat ran into my classroom and around the perimeter.