About Khari Gold, the human behind Earthensound♫

Breakworker, Earthworker, Soundworker, Soulworker

I'm Khari Gold and I've hit rock bottom so many times that I consider myself an amateur geologist at this point. When it comes to my regenerative life design peer support practice, alchemy is the name of the game. Turning coal into gold. "Alchemy" can be quite the buzzword, but what I mean is using practical tools like somatics, breathwork, etc. to transmute old repetitive patterns and to use when you find yourself stuck in another painful cycle (e.g. a relationship that drains you just like the last one or a job with the exact same stressors as the one you just ran from).

My approach to alchemy developed over a 10 year period that was the darkest, most confusing and hopeless period of my life. I've observed how easy it is for many humans including myself to fall into a powerless victim mentality because of the way many of us were socialized. An alchemical approach to my healing process allowed me to take action in the present moment during a very long period of my life where I was severely under resourced and lacked a support network. I couldn't keep waiting for salvation in the imaginary future, so I had to use what I had in the present moment.

The result was a fuller life where I could hold the whole story of who I am and live a life in a way that best aligned with my truest, highest self. I had reprogrammed the traumatized default setting and the accompanying sabotaging thoughts and actions that were running and ruining my life.

I have lived many lives over these past 33 years before arriving in my current one. So if you need advice on how to embrace life as a phoenix, I got you!

In college I studied historical and current expressions of global human rights violations and colonialism. I wanted a better understanding of why we live in our current world, and my upbringing as a Black, Queer kid in a Christian ran foster care system in North Tulsa, Oklahoma deeply inspired this pursuit. Growing up in the Greenwood Cultural District where white people committed the 1921 Tulsa race massacre forced me to grow up quickly and see the truth about the world that many today still refuse to see. I illustrated a graphic novel for my senior thesis, which examined the foster care to prison pipeline and how systemic white supremacy strategically targeted and destroyed oppressed peoples' ability to create healthy, trusting, and lasting communities.

But after studying the worst things to happen to Black and Brown people over and over while being alone, having old wounds resurface in full force, and going through a spiritual reckoning-- everything about me broke. I spent many years bedridden and lost. Coal.

And so I turned inward and I turned to Mother Earth. With the help of various lifeforms and divine intervention, I found that everything I needed to create the life of my dreams is within me. It's not that I don't believe in individualistic freedom-- I just think it's bull shit when living in an interconnected reality on planet Earth. How can I be free when my neighbors are suffering? There's no wall we could build that would cut us off from the suffering of those around us. Helping others free themselves and alchemize their own coal so we could all experience true collective freedom became my new dream for the world. Gold.

After that 10 year period of darkness came to a close, I came up with the name Earthensound because I was enamored with the dualistic nature of reality. I explored how to be in balance and embrace those moments where I feel safely pulled between two (or more) different truths existing at the same time; and how being able to hold many truths at the same time is a way of creating an intimate relationship with all that is, while also gaining unique skills to navigate our many realities.

With everything happening in our evolving planet, I believe I am here to convince you that what we thought were curses are actually gifts that build resilience, open our hearts, and grants us the life skills and outlooks to gracefully and joyfully live life on this complicated planet.

I'm not just a dreamer, but someone who truly believes in my dreams becoming reality. Like many humans, I've lived a life of allowing societal brainwashing and justified fears, or so they were at the time, to prevent me from dreaming. Unfortunately, I found that many of the dreams I had weren't even mine in the first place, but ones I was taught to dream. And yet, those very lies and fears led me directly to creating the life of my dreams.

I've spent many years in activist, social justice, and community building spaces, and I have witnessed people cognitively say that they want one reality, but they acted in a way that sabotaged that dream from becoming a reality. They are living a life of theory, not practice. I've witnessed too many people engage in various forms of bypassing, where they ignore their inner reality and bare knuckle their way through their activist work with a "the end justifies the means" mentality that created more suffering for themselves and the people around them.

They were creating the very harm they claimed to be so vehemently against. I've been on the receiving end of that harm more times than I can comprehend. I firmly believe that the inner reality is the blueprint for the external, and these lived experiences taught me the importance of walking an intentional and honest life path.

I credit nitty gritty inner child work as the greatest healer in my journey, and I wish I had engaged in this process many, many years sooner. By nitty gritty, I mean this work gets to the core of those wounds that we have been carrying for our entire lives and that have been influencing us to recreate the same harm over and over no matter what changes we make in our external reality. This inner child work also guided me to becoming obsessed with ancestral healing and the field of epigenetics (the study of changes in gene expression that occur without altering the DNA sequence, and how we pass on trauma to future generations).

As I healed, I could see how my trauma influenced my actions and perspectives in ways resembling the very family who hurt me. This mirror horrified me. "Was I doomed to live the life of all those who came before me?", I sincerely wondered. What surprised me was how this exploration helped me feel compassion for those in my lineage who have created so much suffering for themselves and myself; this completely destroyed the victim/perpetrator dichotomy by allowing me to understand how our bodies hold and share trauma.

This understanding of ancestral and collective suffering helped me develop compassion for the very people who hurt me throughout my life, allowing me to let go of their weight that I had been carrying. I could then practice this act of compassion and understanding with strangers I meet everyday. I'm grateful for being shown how we are all reflections of each other. Don't be afraid to look in the mirror.

I look forward to sharing more of my life journey and learned wisdom in hopes of benefiting my fellow students of this Earth Curriculum.

With humility and gratitude,
Khari Gold 🌍

Note: At the moment, I am not taking on peer support clients. Please reach out with any inquiries at info@earthensound.org

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