writing

i am erth, New Music

Two New Albums of My Music Are Available to Stream Today

i am erth (that’s me), has two full length albums of music being made available today. Courtesy of the democratic nature of our digital society, go on, little pilgrim, and The Crystal Witness of Ancient Fire may be found and enjoyed (ultimately if not immediately) on all the music streaming platforms out there.

go on, little pilgrim, (here is a link to the record on Spotify)(Apple Music) is a collection of new recordings of songs written around 25 years ago when I was a young man attempting the hermit’s life in the hills of South Eastern Kansas. I like these old songs and I had a pretty good time making the recordings. My friend, Sam Kee wrote some liner notes for this record for me. You can read them below.

The Crystal Witness of Ancient Fire

The Crystal Witness of Ancient Fire, (Spotify) (Apple Music) the songs here are more recent than little pilgrim, emerging slowly over the past 12 years. These songs take some time to unfold, are a little more visionary and also more grounded. In fact that might be a theme in this album: grounded vision. But please judge for yourself. 

Go On, Little Pilgrim Liner Notes

What do you do when you unearth an old, coffee-stained book of songs you wrote a quarter of a century ago, but never brought to life? You might be tempted to dismiss them as childish, naive, or unimportant, but if you’re Jack Baumgartner, you breathe onto the embers, for there is still fire in old books and old songs.

The ten songs in Go On, Little Pilgrim are not just about a pilgrim, but they are themselves the pilgrim, setting out at last to make their own journey from the quiet heart of a Kansas sheep farmer to the golden paddock of heaven. They contain all the idealism of someone just getting started, but at the skillful hands of someone who’s farther along and knows that the road ahead will not always be easy.

Jack has a unique ability to write stirring melodies that will have you stomping your feet and clapping your hands, as you mull over relationships, calling, breakdowns, and eternity.

With memory, there is no time. What’s old is new, and what’s new is old. i am earth joins them hand in hand and teaches them to dance around the fire. “Toil on, little pilgrim, find out where the truth rides.” The little pilgrim must begin his journey, and we must celebrate the journey that he has begun, even if we don’t know where he’s going to end up. There will be rare moments when you catch a glimpse of him along the way “on a silver whispering lion brilliantly flying through the recesses of our physical realm.” To me, this album is one of those rare moments. It is a brilliant glimpse.

I think that most of us are tempted to disparage or shame our younger selves for the things we believed or the choices we made, but this album inspires us and challenges us to do differently: we are to gaze lovingly into the heart of our own younger self and cry “Go on, Little Pilgrim! I will help you sing your songs.” 

–-SJK

Ad Astera

– a piece of writing from The Diary of a Tree Standing On It’s Head

Ad Astera


awakened into the dark day desperate
the shame of days disused
heaved their defiling way into the new air
(the now air)
 tilting hope into a tainted air
peace pierced pressed throbs 
instinctively the leper calls unclean
a reflex of grief from deep wounds
unclean
son of David, have mercy on me

then a sign in the heavens
for the penitent under the stars, starwatching
and to see so instant a reply
to the cry, for mercy, so fleet
delicate and sensitive to the time
a meteor in a tiny blue white line
quits the bright sky to kiss me in the night

the stars now singing 
across my soul a song 
do they, great beings, all light and fire and mass,
who I see as a remote and pulsing brightness,
do they perceive me as a speck of distant darkness?
a black dot dancing upon great luminous eyelids
closed against the internal glowing abyss of their being

I sense the song singing
dreaming into my soul's slumber
heard by spirit into spirit waking
Everything's own sonorious drawl
near and warm as seems my blood 
distant and cool as seem the stars:

oh, my beloved, oh, my heart
do not be afraid, I am for you now
you, who have been thinking you are too slow
too slow of your hands you thought
and your feet and your heart you thought
too slow in your great labors you thought
but I say, no, not slow enough, no not yet
the trees are slow and the rocks still more
the earth prodigious in slowness
but not yet you, you must be slower still

oh, image, oh, self-discerning self
you, who have been thinking 
that you have become too small
too obscure and too insignificant
you who have been thinking 
that you can measure meaning
by size and shape and outward things
but I say no, no, not yet have you become truly small
not as the small beings whose life doesn't weigh on the moral scales
you must become as obscure as the undiscovered 
as insignificant as the poor
no not yet, my dear, you must be smaller still

dearest dear, heart of my own heart
you who have been thinking that you are too foolish
foolish beyond what is acceptable, even for an artist
even for a fool, and what miracles are there
to make it ok? 
but I say no, not yet
you are not yet foolish enough to contain me
be foolish until all is lost and squandered
and as a fool go on, and then we'll talk
I am not far  

oh, beloved god-knowing self
you who have been thinking
that you have failed too often
and too greatly too grievously
you who have been thinking much 
that I will disown you
that I would spit you out 
because the great practice you have made 
of failing and of shame
but I say no, not yet
you have not failed enough nor greatly 
not yet enough to receive me
when I come like water and 
when I come like fire
fail still, fail and fear not
I will not abandon you
fail and do not abandon me 

(silence for one minute)
(silence for one hour)
(silence for one day)
(silence for one month) 
(silence for one year)
(silence for a week of years)
(silence for a generation)
(silence for an age)
(silence for an epoch)
(silence)

the hands of the stars touch me
their billion flashing fingers reach out tingling
very nearly, but not quite, painful
pinpricks like little electric shocks
in a limb waking up from awkward sleep
and receiving blood again
receiving life again and new

something big entering into something small 
I wake
something high lifting something low
I rise

not slow enough, 
I sigh slowly into the long morning of an eternal presence
not small enough, 
I sigh quietly into the deep obscurity of Everything's smallness
not foolish enough, 
I sigh foolishly into the unknowing of Everything's beautiful foolhardiness
not enough of a failure, 
I sigh falling into the vulnerable nakedness of Everything's own fall into me

I hear the star's laughter now
like children they laugh without derision
for joy they laugh
and for love, they twinkle
like stars in the sky