Episode 40: Reconciliation & Reunion

I think everyone has an "I.G.Y." moment when they're young and then an "End of the Innocence" moment later. My "I.G.Y." moment was when the Berlin Wall came down. My "End of the Innocence" moment was 9/11. 

This time of the year, as we careen into the holiday season, it's important to remember that peace is possible. So are reconciliation and reunion. These were ideals that Dag espoused and they are as important now as ever. 

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Sara's award-winning biography of Dag can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Unicorn-New-Look-Hammarskj%C3%B6ld-ebook/dp/B0DSCS5PZT

Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will release globally on July 29, 2026. 

#DagHammarskjöld #reconciliation #reunion #peace #happyholidays 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos! 

Episode Summary:

In Episode 40 of the Decoding the Unicorn podcast, host Sara Causey discusses the themes of reconciliation and reunion, particularly relevant during the holiday season. She reflects on personal "IGY" and "end of innocence" moments, referencing the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and 9/11 in 1991, respectively. Causey connects these events to her biography of Dag Hammarskjold, emphasizing his commitment to disarmament and collaboration. She also draws parallels between Hammarskjold's vision and the message of redemption in "A Christmas Carol," highlighting the potential for peace and unity despite past conflicts. The podcast will be on hiatus for the next two weeks.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

reconciliation, reunion, holiday season, podcast hiatus, IgY moment, end of innocence, Berlin Wall, 9/11, Dag Hammarskjold, disarmament, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, United Nations, peace, redemption, Christmas Carol

Welcome to the decoding the unicorn podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Episode 40 of decoding the unicorn the podcast. I appreciate you joining me today. In this episode, I want to talk about reconciliation and reunion. Since we are rapidly careening into the holiday season, it felt right. It felt like the right topic at the right time. Just as a housekeeping reminder, the podcast will be on hiatus for the next two weeks after this. So there will not be new episodes that drop on Tuesday the 23rd or Tuesday the 30th. However, I will be back in the saddle with a new episode for you on Tuesday January the sixth of 2026 it is a little mind blowing to me to already be talking about 2026 but it will soon be here. Stay tuned.

Sara's award winning biography of Dag Hammarskjold decoding the unicorn, is available on Amazon. Her forthcoming project Simply Dag, will launch globally next summer, to stay in the loop, join her email list. The link is provided in the write up for this episode. And now back to the show.

I've written before in some of my blogging that I think everybody has an IgY moment when they're young, and then later, maybe in adolescence or early adulthood, you have an end of the innocence moment where all of a sudden that youthful optimism just whooshes out of you. You see a different side of the world, and it kind of gets vacuumed out. IgY is a reference to a song that Donald Fagan released when I was still just a kid back in 1982 IgY, what a beautiful world. And the IgY is a reference to the International Geophysical Year, which ran from 1957 to 1958 and it was this time where the world's scientists were going to collaborate together, like they were going to set aside the Cold War drama, and east versus West, it didn't matter where you were from. They were going to collaborate and share information. And in the lyrics, you know, he is a bit tongue in cheek. He's referring to the 1976 us bicentennial year, and he's talking about solar powered cities and a tunnel that runs under the Atlantic from New York to Paris. 90 minutes from New York to Paris, by 76 will be a okay, and everybody can have spandex jackets, and there will be like space stations on the moon and stuff like this. So he is being a bit exaggerative and a bit satirical, but really to capture that buoyancy, to capture the idea of, like, yay. Like, what a beautiful world it will be. My 76 will be a okay for me growing up, my IgY moment was when the Berlin Wall came down in 89 I still remember the images so clearly, because through the 80s there was all of the heated Cold War rhetoric you had in 83 Reagan referring to the USSR as the evil empire, and then later it became Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall, and Gorbachev represented a different path in Soviet leadership, because he was talking about things like glasnost and perestroika. And then in 89 the Wall came down, and I remember seeing people breaking pieces of it apart and holding hands and hugging like people would be on different sides of the wall, and they would knock part of it down and embrace. And it just to my youthful mind, it was like, this is freedom, this is democracy. This is people saying we're not going to be separated. We want unity and cohesion. And it just felt so beautiful to me. It was my IgY moment, like, what a beautiful world this will be. What a glorious time to be free like this. This is we're gonna be a Okay. Now. This is good. This is progress. End of the innocence refers to Don Henley song where he he's evoking images from youth and from childhood, when it's sort of like you think the adults have everything figured out and and you have that idealism, you have that buoyancy and that optimism. And it's interesting looking back, because he released that song in 1989 also when I was still a kid. And so the irony there, I think, is that in 89 I had all this optimism, like the walls coming down, and this is great look at the progress in the world. And then at the same time, Don Henley is releasing this song about the end of the innocence. Now it refers more to the end of the innocence for the boomer generation, I think, which is part of his generation. He's part of that generation, but it really becomes ubiquitous. It's something that I think anybody can. Late to in the video, he shows images of the Reagan years and the Iran Contra affair. But for me, my end of the innocence moment was 911 that's also something that I'll just never forget. I'd gotten up that morning and I turned the TV on, and I was sitting and having my breakfast, the first plane had hit, and not long before, there had been a news report about PILOTs taking chances, drinking on the job, using cocaine, using street drugs. And I thought, my God, this is a terrible accident, and somebody is going to sue the pants off of that airline. The pilot was probably coked out of his mind, and they are going to absolutely sue that airline into non existence. This is going to be a crazy mess. And then I'm sitting there and I'm eating cereal, and the second plane crashed, and it happened so fast, but at the same time it happened in slow motion. It's like, I can just see it so clearly in my mind. And I almost choked on my food. I I couldn't hardly believe it. It was like, and people were crying and people were screaming, and you knew it was not an accident. It's not one pilot who was drunk or on street drugs. This is happening deliberately, and I that that did it for me. It was like my IG, why? Moment that happened in 89 totally got obliterated on 911 that was my end of the innocence moment. Now, fast forward in time a bit a few months ago, I had had to go to the doctor just for some routine stuff, and as I was coming back, I had the oldie station on. It pains me to say, music from 82 has now lapsed into the oldies collection, but it has, that's reality. And they played IgY, and it was emotionally affecting for me. I just I sat there and I wanted to cry behind the wheel. I'm like, pull it together, because to me, whereas before I would listen to that song, and I was like, Yeah, this is about the optimism you have when you're young and you think everything is going to be a okay. But knowing dag as I do, having the communion that I have with him, it felt so much like Wanda and vision. It's like I just feel you. I can't listen to that song or think about the International Geophysical Year and this spirit of cooperation and collaboration without thinking of DAG. It's just everywhere. It's, it's, it's like being wrapped up in a blanket. You can't you can't not think about it. I can't not think about him when I hear that song. Now, he was committed to disarmament, and he was committed to the idea that knowledge is meant to be shared, not hoarded, and that atomic energy should be used for peaceful purposes, to create jobs, to create energy, to further things like medicine and agriculture, but not to murder people, the human brain, all the capabilities that we have towards progress and invention, should not be used for mass murder, we shouldn't be thinking of ways to harm the planet. How can we obliterate humanity? How can we murder plant and animal life and make this earth uninhabitable for generations to come? Like, why would we even do that? I got misty eyed in the car. I was like, well, this song just means something so different to me now than it did for years. And I want to read a passage now from decoding the unicorn, because we're in a season of redemption, reconciliation, reunion, regardless of what you may think religiously and whatever your preferences and ideas may be, I try to be inclusive. It's not my place to preach to anybody. That's not the goal here. Dag had a strong belief also in reconciliation, that after two people or two nations had been squabbling and bickering and disagreeing, there was a way forward. There was a way to reconcile. He firmly believed that, and it wasn't about being a Pollyanna. It wasn't about putting on rose colored glasses and pretending that negative things don't exist in the world. He was practical and pragmatic, but he also had that spirit, that sense of there is a way forward. We do not have to believe that war and bloodshed are the default settings of mankind. If somebody else chooses to believe that that's on them, but the rest of us don't have to follow. Follow along with that idea,

so I'll read now under the heading symphony, the streets of Manhattan were shrouded in mist and drizzle as the Philadelphia orchestra's bus made its way toward the United Nations building, small raindrops pattered softly against the windows, blurring the skyline as the musicians shifted in their seats. They weren't alone in their endeavor. The Temple University Choir, traveling separately, would join them to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its entirety. Together, they would lift their voices and instruments in honor of United Nations day at the request of Dag hammarsk Inside the General Assembly Hall, Bill and Andy sat together surrounded by other UN employees. The air inside was warm and inviting, marking a stark contrast to the cool fog outside. Andy leaned over his eyes scanning the grand stage with everything else dag has to do. How did he coordinate this? You know, he did it all himself. Bill smiled, that's DAG. He whispered back. He's like a human perpetual motion machine. Hardly sleeps and works incessantly, and somehow it always comes together. Andy agreed, as the musician settled into their places on stage, Dag stood at the front and began our organization often battles through harsh struggles and dark times. We hold fast to the belief that one day harmony will prevail. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is like a statement of conviction. So too is our steadfast notion that peace is possible like the Ninth Symphony. Our voyage is not easy. We are still early in the UN's history, and we are up against sharp conflicts and mistrust, but just as Beethoven leads us from turmoil to reunion, from fear to Bliss. We must all keep our faith. This day reminds us that we must never lose hope. We may be far from the end of our struggles, but we must never waver in our efforts to build a foundation of simple human values, a foundation that will unite us in peace. Eugene Normandy, the renowned conductor, gave a small nod of acknowledgement to dag as he stood before the orchestra, Dag took his seat and the beautiful performance began. His eyes were dewy at times, but he was careful not to show it. Later that evening, Dag sat in his apartment library the warmth of a crackling fire behind him and greenback perched on his lap. The room was quiet except for the occasional scratch of his pen on paper. He paused as his mind turned over the words of Isaiah, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more anymore. The idea of nations turning away from war to embrace peace lingered in his thoughts, intertwined with the echoes of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, he also found himself drawn to the image of Dickens, Ghost of Christmas Past, coming not with judgment, but with the promise of reclamation, reunion, reconciliation. He thought, as his pen moved again, that same yearning he felt had filled Beethoven's final movement, a deep desire for connection after conflict I watched both versions of a Christmas carol that I really liked just the other night. I love the one with Alistair sim and I also love the one with George C Scott both take the character of Scrooge in slightly different directions, because in the Aleister sim version, I think they lean a bit more into Scrooge being grief stricken. His sister is his person. It's like his mother has died in childbirth. His father holds a grudge against him. His older sister, however, is like his person, his ally, as well as a maternal figure for him. And when she dies in childbirth, he never really gets over it. He throws himself into his work. His fiance says, I feel like you're so focused on work. You're obsessed with money. I don't think we should do it. I don't think we should get married. So then he pours himself even more into his work. Amidst this also is the industrial revolution. So you have someone not unlike what we're going through now with the advent of AI and robotics and a rapidly changing job market, you have someone who feels like I have to worship money, I have to worship my job, because if I don't, I will be crushed under with the weak and the infirm. I have to steal myself. I have to be hard and tough and cynical and mean, otherwise, I'll get hurt. The version with George C Scott leans more into the idea that it's almost like he inherited this personality type from his father, because we see more of the Father in that version, like he's He's tough, he's hard nosed. And it's like, well, I you're going to be home for a few days because your sister wants to see you. I really don't, but she does. And then you're going to go and be apprenticed, and you're going to make your way in the world like I don't, I don't even want to deal with you. I really don't even want to acknowledge your existence. Very much. He falls in love with this woman and proposes to her, but whenever his father does. He gets a little nest egg, and he decides that he wants to loan that money out and use it as an investment, like if I, if I send this money out and I make interest on it, then that money compounds, and then that money compounds, and so forth. And he uses the excuse that he thinks that he can make a better life for himself and the fiancee, so that when they're married, they'll be well off. It's almost as if to say, because she's poor and she's not coming to the marriage with a dowry from her family, I have to do this almost like the sense of I have to make up for the fact that you're not bringing any money into the marriage. And she releases him from the proposal, and she goes off and marries someone else, and he stays single and just worships his business. Both versions, however, in keeping with the story, there's a sense of redemption, of reconciliation, that even if you've been living in a way that hasn't been healthy, you've been obsessed with money and power and greed, you can change. You don't have to live that way anymore. A Christmas Carol is also a story and a movie that whenever I watch any of the versions, or I sit down and I read the original story by Dickens, I just I think of dag because of that passion he had for reconciliation reunion, for saying that even after conflict, even after struggle, there is a way forward, and there is a way to get back into union, to get back into communion with one another. That's certainly my hope through this holiday season, may we recognize that peace is possible and that reconciliation and reunion are as well. Take very good care of yourself, whatever you celebrate. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and I'll see you again in January.

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