From the Editor: The Grazioso Issue

If this is the world, I think I could get used to it. This feeling of nothing to hide from, no hint of violence. For the first time in years, the quiet. The absence of yearning.

Half Mystic Journal’s Issue IV: Grazioso is a glowing thing, gentle daze, halcyon, something of rhapsody. This issue was difficult to create, mostly because it felt often that immersing myself in light was indulgent, especially in an increasingly dark & broken world.

But if there’s anything I have learned in helping to bring Issue IV to life, it’s that the light matters more now than ever before. Nestled between these pages is the kindest sky, the revolution pink & humming, no real synonyms for ache. There is a truth in dusk, but there is another that sounds like cellos, like safety, like you do not have to be brave.

Issue IV is a creation full of the kind of light that never drowned anything, the kind of light that knows only song. In this place, the peaches are ripening, the wind is whispering, every song stretches muffled & softened & tender & warm. There exists a love that all of us can fit inside. No one knows the colour of blood, & we can listen to our favourite music on repeat without ever getting tired of it.

So if this is the world, I think it’s okay. Things are gentle still, & we have hours left. If this is the world, I may never tire of the smell of honey & lavender. If this is the world, I’m grateful for the grazioso that keeps happening to us, always & ever, real & imagined, amber & slow, over & over again.

Issue IV centres around the theme of grazioso: the dream-bright waltz – the soft-stained song – the place where sunlight settles & nothing really hurts. There is so much melody to embrace here, so much tender curling blossom to call your own.

This issue contains the voices of Terry Abrahams, Devin Kelly, Kate Bucca, Maria Sledmere, Emily Paige Wilson, Jill Mceldowney, Chloe N. Clark, Yves Olade, Diane Blue-Solis, Sydney McNeill, Emily Blue, Jade Riordan, Eli Winter, The Woodlands, Dessa Bayrock, Margaryta Golovchenko, Donna Vorreyer, The River Has Many Voices, We Are The West, & Alexandra Eldridge.

The grazioso issue explores the music of growing gold in a time when the world feels overtaken by shadow. We have hope that this creation might help draw our aching world out of its endless, cacophonous dusk.

Order your copy today. We’re so honoured to share it with you. xx