Almost finished with the book...
The final form of my daemon from the Golden Compass site...not surprising, actually, though I have a serious phobia of spiders when they are real and in front of me and all over my apartment in Sterling Heights, and especially after a girl at work in Cincy was bitten by one and had a reaction that heavily implies a brown recluse bite.
I like what one of the characters in the second book said about settled daemons--about how once it settles you learn things you might never have otherwise guessed about yourself. From Wikipedia:
Spiders in symbolism and culture
Main article: Cultural depictions of spiders
There are many references to the spider in popular culture, folklore and symbolism. The spider symbolizes patience for its hunting with web traps, and mischief and malice for its poison and the slow death this causes. It symbolizes possessiveness and storage for its spinning of its prey into a ball and taking it to its burrow (for burrowing species).
Though all spiders do not spin gossamer webs, spiders have been attributed by numerous cultures with the origination of basket-weaving, knotwork, weaving, spinning and net making. Spiders are pervasive throughout folklore and mythology. Spinning and binding is evident in the etymologies of the terms religion, yoga, tantra and wyrd.