"I was in Ricardo's first goddess book and I can guarantee that it was not only very professional and taste full, but extremely profound and surreal. I not only walked away that day feeling different...that feeling never went away. I cried when I saw the pictures because my body was not what it had been less than a year ago, almost perfect. I cried again a year later when I learned that this new body was the sign that I had a brain tumor. I thanked the Goddess for entering my body, saving my life and asked her to stay. She is still here...

At the time of the shoot, I was in a very dark period of my life.

I was also working in the music industry with very heavy and dark Metal. The night before the shoot, I had had a very large show at the place I had chosen for my shoot. An old warehouse modified to hold small concerts in an industrial area of Downtown Seattle. It still had a wooden floor and was very much still the old warehouse with the addition of a stage, soundboard and some band practice rooms in the back. The morning of my shoot, the most of the lights were still off and the light that we used was the natural light that streamed through the windows of the ceiling. I could see the dust particles in the beams of light; I could smell the stench of stale body odor, beer and cigarette smoke. Red cups half full of beer with butts remained through the place.

Just a few hours prior to the shoot, the music and voices had been so loud I could hardly hear myself think, let alone the voice of the Goddess. That morning was a Sunday; the silence caused a ringing in my ears that was different for that which was leftover from the night before. No sound was heard but the occasionally train and the clicking of the camera. This was one of the pivotal days in my life. A day when I started to see my life for what it was...and what it was not.

Sometimes I look back and wish that I had not been in that period of my life when I experienced the photo shoot. Now I realize, though, that the Goddess wanted me to do my shoot at that time. Ricardo and I found each other for what we needed to fulfill that which we were destined to do on this part of our life journey so that we could move forward awakened into the next experience of our own as well as become known members of each other's soul group.

I do not think I would have done this if I had not been a part of this project.

My experience with Ricardo and maintaining connection with him through Herbal Medicine and friendship ingrained in who I am now. Looking through the Goddess photos and watching his project grow, has made me come to realize that the Goddess has always been a part of who I am that I am my own Goddess and I always have been. Looking at my photos and those of the other Goddess, being where I was before, during and after my photo shoot brings me to realize that I have always been a Goddess. I see these Goddesses and can almost imagine where they are in their journeys as maiden, mother and crone...yet always the Goddess. I can see who realizes it and maybe who does not.

Ricardo has been able to get women of all colors, ages and sizes of many different cultures and life styles to remove their protective shells seen for who they, WE, truly are.

Thank you Ricardo, my friend and soul group adventurer, for being here and now, then and now."