In undergrad, I had a brilliant English professor for my advanced creative writing courses: TM McNally.

www.tmmcnally.com

My first impression of Professor McNally was him being over 40 minutes late, bursting in the room, looking about, and declaring in a short staccato: "Am I late?" Followed by immediately launching into what appeared to be a random ramble of nonsense. Two hours of talking later, somehow a whole mess of topics ranging from astrology to sports scores to what he had for dinner that night to singing Taylor Swift all tied back together to a brilliant first lesson on writing. He ended the class with, "figure out among yourselves who's bringing in work every week. Someone brings work in every week. Let's not waste any weeks. See you guys next class."

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In his class, McNally frequently spoke of making our writing and our stories anagogical. While this lesson is still the most memorable, and something I actively work to do in my writing and storytelling, I still have an impossibly hard time explaining what this means (as I am no McNally with the magical ability to tie disparate tangents together into cohesive explanation). Let's start, I suppose, with a little Webster:

an·a·go·ge also an·a·go·gy (n-gj)

Hm. That's not quite what we mean to say here. Let me see if I remember how McNally explained it in class. Below is a transcription taken with supreme liberties (caused by time, a poor memory, and creative license):

"Okay. So. Let's say you have a main character. A guy. Because you know, boy hero chauvinistic world blah blah. And he plays on a baseball team. And they're the little league Cardinals. And let's say a few years later he goes camping with a girl, and when they kiss for the first time, he looks up and sees a cardinal fly by. And then he's in church, repenting for kissing girls, and he speaks to a cardinal! And then he goes to eat at a burger place and it's delicious and it's called - oh wait, that's Red Robin's. But you get what I'm saying." --TM McNally

Chaos theory states systems don't trend towards order, but rather break down into more and more chaotic, unorganized parts. Yet anagocial readings and interpretations seek out the connections, the order, the patterns, of a story - of a life. Connections that seem random and by chance take on an almost spiritual, or astrological significance.

chaos! science! pretty colors!

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Personally, I can't decide whether this pattern exists or it's just the human mind trying desperately to string together disparate particles and nonsensical coincidence. However, I have observed the phenomenon - and I know stories with strong anagogical elements feel more satisfying and true.

I bring all this up because, of course, my life feels pretty anagogical right now. Things happening today are connecting to experiences I had before, and lessons I've learned in the past are sharpened and deepened by experiences I'm having in the present. And as a theater artist (there's the relevance to this blog!), I know that the more I am able to see and make the connections in my own life, the more I see and understand the subtleties and subtext in a play or part, the more I attune my eyes to the semi-mystical spiritual recurring themes that emerge, the better storyteller I'll be.

We as artists have the job of stringing sense out of chaos. Even if we paint in non-narrative, non-linear strokes and gestures, the impressionistic landscape of emotions we weave tells a story that is undeniably anagogical.

Nothing is random once it is observed.