#james mcbryde

Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come to You, My Lad

M R James

Artist and illustrator James McBryde was one such friend. He was handsome and ten years younger than M.R. James and and they even went on holiday together- three years in a row. But in June 1904 McBryde died aged 30 after appendicitis surgery and M.R. James was griefstricken. But also la decade later the loss of thousands of young men to their death in the trenches of WWI increased his sense of isolation. His diary for 1914, the year WWI began, is completely blank. It was McBryde who encouraged M.R.James to publish and he provided the illustrations. M.R. James became welcome godfather to McBryde's young daughter.

But this Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Virgo squares that Uranus in Gemini. This particular synodic cycle of Jupiter-Saturn is affecting us at the end of 2024 in the form of an opposition of both these archetypes. This relationship of Jupiter-Saturn and Uranus is tense but could be highly constructive for a writer to have Mercury ruling these planets in this arrangement. But the energies they release could be dificult to reconcile.  In July 2025 we’ll get a chance to feel exactly how inventive Uranus in Gemini might be once again. It was in Gemini upon its discovery in 1781 so feels at home there.  Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury after all. It brings that surprise element to the characters- their oddness without being too obvious about it. Perhaps Uranus in Gemini describes the fuddy-duddy academic type he puts in his stories- these people who at a slight angle to the world, slight inept socially, but who are capable of gathering an encyclopaedic knowledge. They endure a shock to their nervous systems as the suddenness of evil bursts into their tidy studious world.