Four years ago I traveled to Mobile Zoo, where I met an incredibly friendly mule deer who followed me around. But there were others there who I enjoyed seeing, including some highland coo, warthogs, and red deer.

Back then, I still hated tigers for the wrong reasons, and of course they have tigers there.

It's been four years, and twice I have been visited by tigers.

I've decided to go to the Zoo again, so I could look the tiger in the eyes, so I can face my fear...maybe so I can get some answers from one of my shadow totems.

This trip is both to face my fear as well as to visit my guide. In a way, this trip will be much like a personal pilgrimage for me, since I know quite a bit about totems and spirit guides.

The trip was sooooo worth it! I was sad to see they don't have the mule deer there anymore, but the red deer were friendly this time, and I got some pretty funny pictures as well as some video.

Got to see my tiger, I spoke with him a bit. He gave me a low growl, but I think it was non-threatening. Maybe he was telling me just not to worry so much.

I will tell you, aside from the deer, the bears were my favorite this time! They have these PVC pipe tubes that run from where you're at to inside the pen, and they're there for you to drop peanuts in for the animals. Wait til you see what the bears did, they were so smart!

They also had a really cool chimpanzee named Joe there who literally used a piece of bamboo to rake peanuts closer to him. I felt bad that they didn't put one of the PVC pipes there for him so he had to work a bit to get his peanuts. I kept trying to toss the peanuts into his pen but they kept bouncing on the fence and landing in the 'safety' area in between, so he used the stick to pull the peanuts closer to him.