“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Today is May first–Beltane–one of the turning-points of the Celtic year. It’s a day of fresh growth springing from ancient roots. It’s also one of the thin places in the year’s gyre, a time when the veil between the mortal and immortal worlds can be parted, if only for a fleeting moment.

Anything might slip through.

During April, I took a break from social media in all its myriad forms. During that time, my furry muse passed beyond the veil, as did my husband’s grandmother. I added to my collection of rejection letters from literary agents. T. S. Eliot was right, about this April at least. It’s been a cruel month.

But it’s also been a month of deep-down digging, a month of cold spring rain seeping into parched roots. It’s been a month of pileated woodpeckers and the flight of a wild turkey through the green-gold woods. It’s been a month of stories slowly blossoming, of buds unfurling their heart-secrets to the sun.

In the interim, kind Stan at Muz4Now generously invited me to write a guest post for his blog, which you can read here if you’re curious about what I’ve been steeping these past weeks. If your spirit, like mine, needs a little balm, listen to his gorgeously improvised musical prayers for Nepal, Baltimore, and all of us.

I cannot say yet what, if anything, I have learned. I hoped I would come away from this month with answers–about how to cultivate a meaningful social media presence, about how to optimally utilize the many platforms available, about how to engage with social media without being consumed by it. But I don’t have any answers. I’m tempted to extend my sabbatical, but a little voice keeps whispering encouragement. Or maybe it’s just goading me on. In either case, I have decided, for now, to step out the door, to live in the questions, to see what, in this thin place, slips through.