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.

White Women See it Now

This is the time of women rising and I speak to white women particularly when I say we cannot bury our heads in the sand any longer. This is heartbreaking work, so protect your state of mind as needed, but our mission is not to turn away because it’s too brutal. Our Black sisters and Native American sisters have been carrying the brunt and knowledge of these crimes alone for too long.

The vast majority of us are shocked at the horrors being revealed in the files, but THEY aren’t shocked because these horrors aren’t an evil birthed in the modern age, but crimes that have been being perpetrated against them since our country’s inception. Crimes whose memories have been carried in their bloodlines from their ancestors, that for far too long have stayed hidden in the dark. Crimes that continue to this day.

Men using women and children’s bodies for their sexual pleasure and most deviant evil fantasies, including hunting human lives for sport, is not new. White men believing they can use and abuse women and children for their own sick crimes started centuries ago, when our forefathers decided the white man reigned supreme and had no conscience over what he did to people who he was taught to believe were not as human or valuable as him. We acknowledge white women were also participants and silent observers in these crimes.

White women need to find our inner strength and educate ourselves regarding the truth of the foundations and beliefs regarding our country’s history and stand with our black sisters and Native American sisters and tell them we see it now. We see it and they no longer have to carry the burden of rectifying this evil alone. We are your sisters who have awakened, and we will face these souless predators not just standing shoulder to shoulder with you but standing in front of you. Telling you that it took too long, but we see it now and you no longer carry this burden alone.

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.