Welcome!

Mary Photo

Welcome! I’m Mary Long, Founder of Herstory Network and the host of Heroines & Heretics Podcast.

I am absolutely convinced that the healing of this world will be brought about by women, but first we have to heal ourselves. We can no longer wait for someone to rescue us, we must rescue ourselves. How do we do that? Together. We do it together. By going within. By asking questions about why we believe what we believe. By challenging the status quo and refusing to be silent any longer.

I have a lot of questions regarding why women have taken on the role we have in this society and our world, and I am in search of answers. It’s time to take a good long look at the parts we’ve accepted as the duty of our gender, and ask ourselves if it isn’t time to re-examine them and see if there isn’t a better way.

Among these pages you will find women of great courage and determination, past and present.  Women who are presently performing amazing feats, big and small, that are changing our world.

Women who history may overlook, but herstory will not.

May they inspire you to remember the greatness that lies within you as well.

The Rumbling in Women Waking Up

There is an earthquake starting in women who are ready. A rumbling so strong that sometimes it feels as if it will spontaneously combust our human containers.

What if there’s a truth so powerful that for millennia those in control have been actively burying it? What if this truth is hidden deep in the souls of women, and it was ordained long ago that at this time in human history, when all seemed lost and there was nothing to cling to anymore, it was agreed that this was the time She would rise again, and we would be the midwives and the birthers of this new dawning?

Considering the revelations regarding Deepak Chopra being one of the predators in the files (Yes. Predator. When you tell a known and convicted pedophile to ‘bring your girls’, you are a predator) and knowing this is the first of many, I propose that moving forward women seek out only women as spiritual leaders and guides.

I say this because when women gather, we remember. We remember the truths of our divinity and power buried deep in our cellular memory. When we gather, we are gently nudging each other awake and whispering ‘remember, remember.’

All traditional religious teachings and much of the new age spirituality have a foundation of patriarchy, some hidden deeper than others. There is nothing new that’s been revealed for a long, long time. Just the same old male-dominant teachings wrapped in different packages.

We cannot move forward into the new while clinging to the old. We cannot boldly speak our truth while continuing to seek approval from the status quo. Our current belief system was built on the premise of male domination and control. Women are programmed to be supporters and helpers. Females are told they are not holy enough to serve in the highest capacities of their churches and religions. This is tradition and compliance, and it has nothing to do with who we really are and why we’re here. It’s propaganda with nefarious intention.

This is a pivotal point in our human journey. The energy of life is asking us if we will flow with it to a life aligned with the truth of our power and sovereignty, or if we’ll wrap the blanket of false security around us once again and go back to being good, obedient little girls who find their reward in being helpmates.

Those of us who have heard the call will face the fear and follow that call, unable to explain what is rising but more certain of it than anything we’ve ever known in our lives.

Our time of being led by men is ended. We are remembering that we hold the secrets to the origins of life. It is females that gestate, birth and sustain life. We are the gender that is made in the image of the Creator of all.

There is nothing more powerful than a group of women who have united in their remembrance of who they are and what they’re capable of, which is why those in power actively work to keep us fearful and divided. Our television programs are filled with weak women who are fighting each other over men and money. Reality shows are creating the reality they want us to believe in, one where women are divided and disempowered, spending their energy seeking out men, youth and beauty as if it is the holy grail, unaware that we carry the real holy grail within our own bodies. If they keep programming us with division and fear, they can keep us locked in the fever dream of women as second best, here to serve others.

We have been programmed with images of holy women that are soft-spoken, demure and compliant. That is intentional. We have never seen images of the Divine Feminine as the powerful warrior goddess She truly is, unafraid, empowered and righteously raging at those who wish to harm others and erase Her. 

I know there are many women who are comfortable in their assigned roles. I understand. All I ask is that you respect those of us who choose to step out of line and follow our wild paths and that you do not actively work with those who wish to get us back in line.

Honor the path of your sisters. Without judgment.

The White Spiritual Community needs to ask themselves some questions

I have such a hard time when people in the (white) spiritual community say this had to happen. Did it? Or is that just how deep the programming that there must be suffering before reward has become? Was humanity destined to shift at this time? Yes. But did we have a choice of roads? I believe we did. We could have taken the road of the divine feminine, where there would have been the same result, but without all the unnecessary suffering. It would have been bumpy, but not brutal. The divine feminine would never require blood sacrifice, penance, or punishment before reward. Those are corrupted masculine teachings. The divine feminine knows how to shift through indescribable love, and offered it to us. But something got ahold of the white spiritual community and they all started backing the suffering/atonement/reward programming. If you don’t believe this shift could have been made with Her, through love and unity, than you must believe that love is not the most powerful force on earth. If you believe the only way to change is through suffering, that’s successful programming of the patriarchy. I often wonder if all the white people saying this was all destined and the people suffering and dying signed up for it would feel the same way if it was their children being kidnapped. Their families being torn apart, beaten and killed. It’s easy to say ‘they volunteered for this’ when you’ve got nothing on the line. I am so saddened by what I see as the white spiritual community’s failure to truly meet this moment. Black women knew. 92% of them knew. But we allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing this HAD to happen by so many spiritual leaders and programs and that is heartbreaking. They supported this, many voted for it, and now while others are suffering and dying from the choice others made, the people who made that choice are telling them to just focus on the positive? That feels insane to me. The new age spiritual community really needs to take a good long look at what they are putting out into the world and whether it’s truly sound or just regurgitated words that sound spiritual. Did we all allow ourselves to be programmed once again, just with flowing clothes and fluffy language? Start with the fact that one of the most popular voices, Deepak Chopra, is in the files repeatedly with very damning email communications, and then maybe we will all stop looking outside of ourselves for answers, and turn within. In my opinion, that’s what this time is about. Inner guidance and remembering our own inner connections. And stop looking to others to tell us what truth is. Because their truth very often has an agenda. I wish no harm on anyone, but I just can’t stay quiet about this anymore.