Author: Mary Long

The Road We Chose

Mary LongLeave a comment

Imagine there’s an old apartment building filled with families, but the building is falling apart and needs many repairs. It still functions as a shelter, and some rooms need more work than others. One day the owner decided to finally give it the attention it needed to make it a more comfortable, functioning space for its residents.

The owner calls a male contractor who says, ‘the whole thing’s got to come down. It’s all bad and must be destroyed before rebuilding.’

The owner knows this will cause great hardship to its residents. They will have no place to go and will suffer greatly, living on the streets, going hungry. Some of them won’t survive.

The owner then calls a female contractor who agrees the building needs a lot of work, but she can do it a unit at a time. The residents can work together by staying in each other’s apartments while others are being worked on. They will learn cooperation, community and how to make things new through loving and supporting each other during these times. They will find ways to help and rebuild in the most creative ways. Things they’d never even thought of before! They’ll suffer a bit of hardship, but certainly not such dire consequences as the complete destruction of the building.

I’m still trying to absorb the fact that the (mostly white) spiritual community chose the former. That they could not envision anything but total collapse. That using their free will, leaders in these communities repeated over and over how destruction was necessary for rebuilding. Isn’t that covert religious dogma? Suffering followed by reward? Are we unable to envision a beautiful life without horrible suffering first? This is the corrupted masculine training. Conquest before victory.  If you’re telling millions of people destruction is the only way, at what point does it stop being prediction and start being creation?

I believe this is the time of the rebirthing of the Divine Feminine. She is showing us that we do not need to suffer to live a beautiful life. I am greatly saddened that so many in the spiritual community could not see we had a choice between total destruction or rebuilding with cooperation and love. That our vision was so clouded with our suffering/reward training that we could see no other way. That we forgot that love is the most powerful force on earth and can overcome any obstacle.

Now we will all have to live with this painful, destructive road that mass consciousness was programmed to choose.

We will get to the promised land, but my heart will always ache for the kinder, more loving road She tried to show us was available, but we chose to ignore.

The Price We Pay

Mary Long1 Comment

I understand my posts of late make some of you uncomfortable. I’ve been part of the non-religious spiritual community for many years and am never ashamed to say my relationship with the Divine Source, whatever it is, is the most important thing in my life. I’ve been on this path for a long, long time.

Lately I’ve felt the push back from women who believe politics are ‘low vibration’ and don’t mix with spirituality. With deepest respect, I have some questions for you.

Is your rejection of a spirituality that’s loud and pushes back against oppression rooted in your truth, or are you simply following the traditional programming that trains us to be compliant, good little girls who pray quietly to their God and don’t make any waves? This is not an accusation, but a sincere question.

I know the dilemma this poses, as I’ve wrestled with it myself. I’ve seen the looks of judgment from my sisters who believe in only ‘love and light’ as I become more and more vocal in this political climate. I’ve received their texts and emails saying how they’re praying for me, and I should just hang in there and eventually I’ll ‘get there.’

Most of us agree that this is the time the Divine Feminine is rebirthing herself. I’m wondering if our programming from traditional religions has tainted our view of what a female who is fully embodied in her Divine Feminine power looks like.

Over and over in my religious training, I was programmed with images of religious women who were quiet little helpers, supplicating themselves before the God they were taught to believe in. These were the women God favored and approved of. I can’t think of many historical examples of a woman  who fully embodied her power and roared against those who wished to oppress her, that ended well.  Usually, those women ended up on a bonfire or at the bottom of a lake.

Is it possible these horrors live in our cellular memory? Is it possible that it’s these memories that keep us continuing the cycle of being nice, quiet little girls?

Why do you think it is that one of the first things a tyrannical government does during a takeover is control and silence the women?

Why is it that they are once again proposing bills that would enable them to imprison or execute us if we go against their rules? If we dare to speak out against them or posit that we have dominion over our own bodies?

Why are they so terrified of women unifying and remembering who they really are?

Is it possible that the rebirth of the Divine feminine is so terrifying to the patriarchy that they are doing everything they can to control our bodies and silence our voices?

I know this is uncomfortable. It still is a bit for me, too. But I’ve had too many inexplicable and miraculous experiences to stay quiet. I’m not interested in a spirituality that stays home praying while her brothers and sisters are being targeted and suffering. While the rights that the women who came before me fought so long and hard for are being repealed and negated.

I pose no judgment if your path is a quieter one, but that is not my calling.

If you believe a spiritual life is incompatible with activism, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Jesus and Malala Yousafzai would like a word.

Can you think of one example from history where the rich and powerful realized the error of their ways and willingly gave that up to give those they were oppressing equal rights and a better life? Those rights many women so easily voted away came from a long line of women who called up their inner warrior goddess and spoke truth to power.

None of us can know what another soul’s purpose is in this life. Maybe some of us were put here to quietly envision a better life. Maybe some of us were put here to find the courage to use our voice and speak out for righteous change.

It’s taken me a long time to find my voice, and it’s taken even longer to rid myself of the need for approval from society and pats on the head from those who wish to keep me compliant and afraid.

When She came to me, She came to me roaring. She came to me breathing fire and refusing to spend one more minute being tolerant of the oppression and abuse of her daughters. She came to me carrying a sword of justice that vowed to end the discrimination of any of her children. She made it clear that love was an action word, and that she was unleashing Herself, in all Her power.

Would you tell me that the version of Her you believe in is more valid than my own personal experience? More valid than what She is telling me within my own heart?

I’m no Joan of Arc, but I now fully understand her decision to be burned at the stake rather than denounce the voice of the Divine that was within her. The voice the men in power over her demanded she deny.

The price of trading outward approval for denying the truth rising within is too high. I did that for too many years.

It’s a price I’m no longer willing to pay.