Challenge Entry
I have to admit this one was harder for me than I initially thought it would be when I first saw it on Wednesday. It’s been awesome & heartwarming & I am so filled with love 
for everyone that has shared the stories of their beloved pets & companions. I completely empathize & understand how everyone feels & the losses incurred. They are all beautiful entries & amazing pictures. 
I have said before within the coven 
that a friend of mine had said that I needed to make my spirit animal the turtle 
when I was at the beginning of a long journey with some physical health things & healing from them. I have read about familiars, spirit animals, & totem animals since then throughout the forum:
→ Familiars and A Pet
→ 
Familiar Spirits and Power Animals: What is the difference?
→ Spirit Animals 
So from that I’m not sure that my friend making my spirit animal the turtle is exactly right. However, at the time & since then I have connected with the turtle in more than a few ways & I always go back to it. I also now have charms on my bracelet, a stuffed animal, & sort of collected (& still do) crystal carvings in the shape of a turtle. I have quite a few now 
Honestly, I still didn’t know how to approach this one, because after reading about them & then trying to think of animals that I come across or that seem to be attracted me & act a bit out of the ordinary (not in a bad way of course or in a way that would mean something was wrong or I could be harmed) I wasn’t sure… since I don’t have much time to really meditate 
on it (my daughter has a long weekend from school 
& a friend over) & clearing my mind with this kind of clogging up the mind & making me feel a bit mentally & physically weighed down 
I decided to look for maybe some quizzes to help me out. 
The first one I decided to take was What’s Your Totem Animal from the How Stuff Works website. My result was:
Ah… can’t say that I really identify with parts of this 
but it’s a quiz from a website on How Stuff Works so really taking this one with a grain of salt. Honestly, the result from @SilverBear’s post on Spirit Animals within the replies makes a whole lot more sense to me. That result was the Snake 
& it resonated a lot more then & now. I also know that according to the Western Zodiac, I was born under the year of the Snake … now that I think about it animals & signs associated with rebirth, transformation, renewal & associated things seem to be a theme for me 
So after that, I decided to do another quiz on Spirit Animals & that result kind of surprised me 
The site itself is a Spirit Animal site, but I always have a grain of salt mindset until you can find out more when I do online quizzes
I was kind of shocked 
Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get this result. Plus, what it was saying completely resonated & made sense & clicked in so many ways… So I continued reading:
Now, this site seems to use Spirit Animal & Totem Animal interchangeably. I can’t say that I agree with that, I feel like they are 2 separate things even if very similar. I also feel like I need to research & learn more about the similarities & differences then see if maybe they are or not. That’s my own thing though & my need to know & understand things. 
At any rate, I was shocked that my result was the Turtle & based on what this says, I really connect & resonate with what it has about it as your spirit animal & things about you or that you should remember, know, be aware of, who you are; I’m not sure if I am using the right words for it but hoping that you get the idea of what I’m trying to say … Gotta love word salad 
in the morning.
With that being my result & how close I feel to the explanation… & with most of my family attending to some other commitments, I think I am going to start cleaning my main altar where most of my crystal carvings of turtles are currently.
I want to look into Celtic 
Animals & see what I can find out about those & then how to reach out, know, or find out what (if any) they would be for myself. Kind of gather information about the types of animals whether spirit, totem, or otherwise & see if any of them resonate with me, are with me, or have a connection with me, in my practice & workings that maybe I did or didn’t actually know or realize before now.