Welcome to Between the Threads, a podcast exploring the threads that connect us, story, memory, identity, and meaning, and how they weave the fabric of peace in our lives and communities. Between the Threads is a joint initiative between Kahanee and Narratives. Kahanee is a nonprofit organization that amplifies storytelling for peace building, and Narratives is an award-winning planning and design firm based in Winnipeg, Canada. Welcome to the very first episode of Between the Threads. On today's show, we are sitting down with Courtney Friesen and Robin Suriyarachchi. Courtney Friesen brings a spirit of connection, bringing tivity and care to her role. a director of partnerships at Kahanee. With a background in marketing, event planning and organizational leadership, she supports and strengthens Kahanee collaborative efforts across diverse communities and sectors. Outside of Kahanee, you can find Courtney enjoying a good book in the sun, exploring arts and culture, making something new, a very curious little dot, or spending time with her two Siamese cats and the people she loves. Rometh Suriyarachchi is a Peace practitioner at Kahanee, where he supports the development and delivery of community-based storytelling projects, public programming and creative campaigns. rooted in equity, healing, and justice. Born and raised in Sri Lanka. brings a multidisciplinary lens to his work, blending policy insight, lived experience, and creativity from his background in Global Political Economy in the University of Manitoba. His work explores the intersections of identity, migration, memory, and belonging, always with a critical eye and a heart for justice. Rometh is the only chill one. What kind of meds did you take this morning? anti-anxiety ones. There you go. explains it. explains it. I thought I took one. Okay, Okay, well, let's get started. Welcome you both. I will offer a full confession to those who are listening to us. This is our third time recording this episode. You know, we're all in reality. some nerves around it and it's the first one. So we want to get it right. And then eventually, I think we're just going to settle on this will not be perfect. And that is kind of beautiful. And we're just going to embrace it conveniently. So, so welcome to the studio. let's start with learning a little bit about so for you who is Courtney? Who am I? I... Some would describe me as very... calm and collected, think. I feel like when someone first meets me, they might think that I am a little bit more quiet or reserved, very grounded. I'm not. This is a confession podcast. I have a lot of energy and uh charisma and really value just making people smile. We were talking about that before, the money you ask is how much positivity you bring into the world. And I think that's how I like to leave that house every day, other than wanting to blow my eyes out leaving my cats, short honors to cat mention. I just want to enter the world and bring. and humor and light and love and to everything. I'm also though very organized, even if it's a chaotic, organized way. And I always have a good listening ear. I love to listen to people. I do love to talk as well, but I like to listen to one another. And yeah, I feel like that's me. That's amazing. Yeah, you're also hilarious. That's the best plan. Humor is important for people's building. Rometh. Who is Rometh? um Chaotic. Chaotic. ah in between dysfunctional and functional. I like that. it fluctuates depending on my mood and the day. ah And then just getting through life. That's me. ah Just trying to survive the next like till the next day. And also it's funny because so many people ask you who you are multiple times throughout your life, but you never know who you are when you have to actually think about it. uh But I guess the basic answer would be We're getting a date of birth here. I'm not 20. um yeah, just very basic. I like popular culture. am... uh go with the flow until... I think it's you who said this. I go with the flow until I need to know what the flow is. What time is the flow? Yeah, I resonate with that a lot. em Yeah, that's beautiful. And you know, I've always believed very strongly that when someone asks us about us, half of the answer that we give is actually about the person asking us about what the setting is. And of course, there's all these other variables of how you come into a space and how you woke up that day and how you went to bed the night before. But also it's very much... what part of the story do I tell? And how deep are we going? Yeah, there's so many layers. Where do we start? For Tuesday or? I Rometh from like two months ago? Very different. Yeah. Exactly. And I love that, you know, in a lot of ways that is how we give each other space to be able to let those stories about us emerge. So speaking of stories, who is Kahanee? Courtney, we're back to you. Back to me. Kahanee is a peacebuilding organization taking place here in Winnipeg where this is being recorded that uses storytelling. a tool for Peace. And what that means is we like to use storytelling, dialogue, story listening, all as vehicles for understanding one another, for understanding different walks of life and intersectionalities that we all face. And backtracking a little bit, maybe not even understanding, but just hearing what's happening and using that kind of as a guideway, hopefully towards Peace, one can hope, but not hoping that that or not forcing that as the outcome, I would say. I love that. Who's Tahani? Tahani is... beautiful... I loved what you said about um seeing beyond people's differences and I think Kahanee is a space to do that. Kahanee is a space for people of different walks of life, different backgrounds to just come together and um hear each other out. ah see beyond what we are programmed or what we are told to see and just have an open mind and heart and you don't need to shake hands and hug at the end of the day but as long as you leave with a uh story to tell then that's Kahanee. I love it and you know when I think about the power of stories, that's ultimately it. may not, we may not be, you know, becoming like the best of us after sharing the story. Really like storytelling to me makes us a little bit more accessible, a little bit more possible. And I remember up thinking ah you'd watch, these shows about what do you want to do in life? And some people would say, I want world Peace. And I was like, yeah, that's me. I want world Peace. I want people to stop hurting each other. Just get along. And then at some point in life, you realize, oh, wait. actually not going to happen. But how do you do not yet? Oh, don't give me false hope here. But you know, like, it's a way for us to make it a little bit more achievable. Yeah, and I think it... kind of makes, yeah, achievable is a good word and accessible is a great word for it too because I think when people approach world Peace or Peace or conflict in general between maybe two sides, four sides, whatever, it seems really daunting and it seems people don't know where to start and they come. maybe to the table with conflict and hate. and aggression and who knows where that comes from. But when we can share stories and understand one another, it was a few of the things we saying, then it kind of, it opens some little cracks in people's hearts and whatnot and kind of bridges that boundary. Sure, and there's like so much room for more compassion. Because as soon as you understand, there's the action. of some people show up in the space, and then there's a backstory of what happened. And I think to me, that's one of the really powerful mechanisms that makes storytelling, story listening, story work in general so important and important for case is it taps into that global backstory. What is it that happened? And then you see someone in a more human way. Why a podcast? Why are we sitting here in this beautiful space? I can take this. I was just thinking of a really good quote from this past year. It was from Louis Lohr from the years of no borders. good friend of ours. Good friend. Shout out. Yeah. Very nice person. We love you, Louise. Yeah. And he said, you can build a bigger table and not a tall fence. And I love that because why keep people away? Why keep people out when you can instead invite more people, hear their stories and let the world hear. what you have to say? And I think that that is the space, right? I think a podcast is such a beautiful way to do that because right here in Winnipeg we have so many people whose stories go unheard. But yeah, we need a space to hear their stories and I like that this is a good space where we can hear them out but also like while you're driving in your car you can... uh you don't have to sit down and watch a movie or if you want to, sure. But like, there's so many different ways of doing it. This is this is one of my favorite ways. yeah, love it. Yeah, think the podcast is just so suited for Ghani in so many different ways. Cool. Why a podcast, Courtney? I think back to uh stories that you've shared about how you grew up a lot with oral storytelling and I grew up a lot with written storytelling and it's kind of an interesting opposite, I guess. And I feel like the oral storytelling has kind of lost the thread. maybe in North American society here, whatever. We don't have it very often. I remember grandparents or parents reading me books, but they're not necessarily recounting stories, especially stories from necessarily their own imagination or that have been passed down. It's more just like they're just reading to me what someone else has written, which is great too, shout out to parents. But it's very different. And I like listening to someone. I think it does bring in that accessibility feature where it's like, sometimes when you want to read a book about um building or anything like that can be a little bit academic. Sure. Sometimes it is a little bit complicated and hard to digest. You also have to make sure you're tuned in and sitting reading the book as compared to a podcast. No distraction. But a podcast is you can listen to it anywhere like you were saying. You can you can tune in and just like focus on it, but you can also do it while you're typing out emails, which is great. uh We're getting into multitasking already. But in terms of an actual like timeline of why a podcast, it's because we started doing these amazing story connections this past year. Ramith was the leader in that and we were having all of these amazing conversations with all of these people globally. their words were just too important to not record and document somewhere. So we decided to do that and the story connections took off. We've gotten lots of views on Instagram and YouTube and whatnot and people are really excited about hearing these deeper connections, these deeper voices, this deep wisdom. um And so it just seemed logical to start a podcast because... m that's what we do. I will also add to that, just to reframe your question, so yeah, I think, I feel like another question rather than that is that why another podcast? Because there's like millions out there, right? So why is Arter's different? And I think that, you know, going off of like story connections from this past year, it has been, I think while we have had so much of enthusiasm of people wanting to listen to people's but I also noticed that people are enthusiastic to share their own stories. Right? There's so many people who are just like, I wanna share my story and this is so great that you guys are doing And like, this is a great platform. So, you know, if someone doesn't listen to our story or our podcast tomorrow, that's person's story is still out there for years and years to come. can always look back and I feel like it's a good way to almost memorialize that story and give meaning to it. Yeah, that's really special. I really appreciate hearing that. You know what comes up for me is we... going back to Courtney, what you were saying about, you know, grandparents reading you a story. I grew up with a lot of my elders telling stories all the time. they were stories were a way for them to communicate life lessons. And they would talk about, you even if even if they wanted to say, don't do something or don't go somewhere, it was never never started with don't do that. It would always start with a story of someone who had done something similar that resulted in an outcome that was probably not a good outcome. So you naturally found this way to relate to the story that didn't even have you as a character in the story. And it was beautiful and meaningful for them to be able to tap into a memory to be able to create that life lesson for us. And I think that was the power of that Odo tradition. And I think that's the power of the stories that it's not something that happens in abstract. It is something that happens very much as a collective. And then when I think about, you know, whose story is important, that's one of the things that we love talking about in future episodes. Everybody's storylines. And how do we create that platform for people to be able to tell their stories? You don't need a big fancy resume or a big fancy vibe, it can be brilliant. Everybody's story matters. I think that is what makes this idea. of Peace just a little bit impossible. So with that, I would love to hear from you all as story love workers, what makes them a story? For me, what makes a good story is I think it depends what format I'm engaging the story in. If we're talking about books, well, it depends on the mood. Yeah, true. It be lately, the world is hard, so I've been reading romance novels because that's what has been calming my mind. But ah sometimes it's really intricate. fiction, sometimes it's nonfiction, whatnot. If we're talking about stories as a larger collective that encompasses the way we talk to people, songs, anything like that. What makes a good story is it needs to be personal enough from the author that it interests you. But it needs to be almost general enough that readers or listeners or story listeners can relate to it and find themselves in it too. So it kind of needs to balance those lines. Yeah, I think that's my answer. oh said, Courtney, about uh the person who writes a story or tells a story. and their intent behind it. I think that I personally resonate a lot with stories that are very authentic and set from the heart. Even if it's music, I like storytelling in music because I like good um arc. I like a good... uh and end. It almost opens a window into the author or the storyteller's life. And that just adds a beautiful layer of. ah kind of like just seeing behind the curtain. um So I think that's what makes a really good story when it's like said with a lot of passion, even if it's fiction, right? Like a lot of fiction, like good fiction is drawn from real life and ah real life stories. And I think that I like that aspect when it's it comes from the heart. Well, I think if it's like relational, because you want, it's engaging in a story is... like an intimate dance to sound poetic where you need to get something from whatever method or form the story is in. But you need to take something. But you kind of want to give your input on what you think about it. and it kind of goes back and forth if you think about story even in like an artwork it's you want to know a little bit about the author but want it to... you want to know about the creator, but you also want to be able to find yourself in it a little. Yeah, I love that... I love that image that that created in my head, because I'm imagining... the beauty of a story is that it has room for someone else. And sometimes it's a story about oneself. and yet the power of a good story is that it just hugs on you and it can pull like little parts of your heart into your own world. And in a way, like that allows you to reflect back on some of your own memories. And I think that's the beauty of a good book, a good story, is it just sort of calms your nerves, allows you to unlock imagination a little bit. So for me, I love stories where can feel the environment a little bit and the author's been able to pull me into their world and I'm participating and I can see this image that they've painted, which is also one of the reasons if it's a really good book, I will never watch that movie because I have created. Because I've created something in my head and I'm that's secret now to work with that. Speaking of listening to stories I Yay. uh So this one is a bit of a sneak peek. um After writing Gajarah uh I asked folks who follow me on my social media, what would you want to see next? And Gajarah, for those who don't know the story about this young girl, Saban, she has this beautiful relationship with her grandmother. So the two things that I offer to people was, do you want... uh book of poetry that redefines them in power or would you like a book that's not a genre but is a genre and unanimous, both of those words are a genre. So this now is the early, very early draft of one story out of a book. Love. eh All right. Once upon a time, many lives ago, a star, Ben O'Mah, lived about. Every night she left her place in the sky, and in streams that lit up the quiet nooks of deep indigo night, she streaked her way down to the earth to rest her face against the snowy planet. Vermounding. Oh, how she adored Vermounding. He was the dark to her light. the jagged to her radiance. seriousness to her laughter. She was stillness to her wander, rooted to her roam, the shadow to her glow. Where she spun and danced across the skies, she stood unmoving, unshakable. She told her mountain the stories of the cosmos. She told him about new friends she had made. about baby stars born with laughter that sparkled in blues and turquoise and soft shimmery golds. Above the colors of the star, as the twinkle across the skies. For she couldn't be the only one. She asked the mountain to come see her in the cosmos sometime. For she couldn't be the only one to always visit him. It was only fair he visited her too. The mountain listened to his beloved star, warm winds holding him. but he knew he could not move. He tried to explain, his voice deep as the rocks that round. Patient as a blue setting. He had to stay. Old guard for the warming fires in the many homes craving his mess. Without him, the people would lose their shelter, their soil, their mountain. The star understood, but her heart ached so much. Night after night she came, pouring her stories into him. pressing her light against his silence. When she knew he could not follow her back, not in this life, she began to grow. Her heart broke. Her tears fell as speckles of golds and silvers from the night sky, tumbling down the cliffs, gathering into little streams that then became rivers. And some say this river here is one of them. of them, formed from the tears of the star that cried for her mountain friend. And if you listen closely, you can still hear the mountain's voice in the water's wash, singing to his beloved star the songs of his love. On the end. I would love to hear what the story makes you think of. What stood out? First of all, that was really beautiful. You have such a way with words and I've told you this before, think. I love euphemisms and I like how... um I like how anyone can listen or read that story and just be able to picture themselves or picture someone from their lives and also just have their own image of the mountain and the star. Because I think that if we were to like draw what we thought of when we heard that story, you and I, Courtney, I feel like it would be different, right? I was thinking of a very like... ah you know, kind of like the Himalayas and, know, that kind of mountain vibe. was thinking Hawaii and I've never been to Hawaii. So I think that like, it's beautiful that a story can do that. And I love that your story does that. And I like the emotional depth that it had. and the different emotions, the happiness, the beginning, but also the sadness, the longing. And uh kind going back to your question before of what makes a good story, it's the ability to evoke different emotions too, And I think that that story did beautiful things and I like that. I love the imagery there. What makes a good story? It's written by Somi. um For me, first off, I like that the story is... it's kind of general enough that it really can encompass kind of all audiences, all feelings. Like, I could read that to my friend's three-year-old and I could read it to my grandmother and it wouldn't be wrong for either audience, which is really cool. So that's... neat. That's a really, um. cool way to write a story is making it not tailoring it to an audience per se. um What kind of came out in my mind from the story is so much curiosity. So much questions. I'm like, tell me more. Because the story ends kind of sad. Yeah. It alludes that the mountain and the star are not together. But I'm like, but what happened? We didn't find out. maybe there's and maybe there's reconciliation in the future. Like, story just ends. maybe there's a sequel, prequel, you know. But then it also left lots of curiosity of just who like the the perspective of the story is kind of from the bias of the star. But you don't. kind of hear the mountainside, but also you don't. So then it unlocked a little bit of thought there, where it's like, know, the mountain is thinking more deeply about it, and how the mountain is feeling. And yeah, just lots of curiosity. of erupted from that story. love it. Thank you. uh You know, I wrote the story, I was in Peru not too long ago and uh I went to this beautiful, beautiful place, Saksawaman in just little bit north of Ustua and this place had such a beautiful palm to it. And I just remember sitting there feeling so grounded and watching the stars and then out emerged this random story that I then thought I have to find a way to incorporate this somehow. For me, I think every story... hope creates an invitation. So I love that it creates curiosity. think, my goodness, I hope we can all live life with more curiosity about so many things. I hope that it's also an invitation to listen to the sounds of the universe. So, you know, the mountain... uh felt so emotional writing that last piece, where if you listen closely to the hush to the hum of the river. can hear the songs that the mountain sang for his beloved star. And I just find, like, there's such a... I find myself so endeared to the mountain, like he couldn't follow her. And yet he sang to her and to this day we can hear the sounds of that in the water. So... to me, a good story also involves this sense of wonder. and something that we can think about for a lot longer. So I love that it doesn't have a tidy ending. Yeah. Because then you're so perturbed and it stays with you longer. And I think it's that staying of the story with you for a little bit of time that helps bring out some of your own stories. It's really like a life lesson for the people who want tidy endings that like... things that's not happening for us to meet. Yeah. I like that you said that because you know, one of the other things that came to my mind was, I don't know if everyone's heard the story, but like the story of the uh tortoise and the... is it a rabbit? Hair? Yeah, hair, yeah. And for some reason, um when you were telling the story, I feel like it just evoked that imagery because that's just like a story that's like... a lot of people know and has stuck with them for so long. and like the lessons that you can learn from that story is like great and I like that your story too it's like although there isn't a particular lesson there is more of a curiosity of like what can you learn from this story or can you take away right and I yeah like a deep list of like different emotions that like it almost invites you to explore like whether it be like the pain of not being someone you love, whether it be the like, desire for understanding, the mountain is like hoping that the star can just understand. His responsibilities. Responsibility, it invites so many different, it doesn't necessarily have an A B and C lesson, but it invites so much different. um more nuance kind of. Yeah, I mean you can almost take any part of that story and invite dialogue. Yeah. Like what do we think? How come the mountain couldn't just... leave? And there's a practicality of it. But then the mountain says, well, I have all these nooks, I'm taking care of all of these people, these villages that are cradle in my nooks. Like, I can't just get up and leave. And the star understands that. But then. It doesn't hurt any less. what is also beautiful there is the star understands it and also feels sadness. So it's also inviting a multiplicity of emotions to coexist. It doesn't have to be just this or that. So to me, one other important ingredient of a story is for it to invite multiple views. Two things can be true. Two things can be true. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Okay, what do we hope people are going to get out of this podcast? Other than fun times and some wisdom and... Definitely wisdom. much laughter. I hope so. I would say that I hope it invites people to first off engage in some just storytelling, sorry, listening, sorry. um I feel like... the podcasts that are all on the top 100 charts, they're all listening, they're all just people sharing their stories. And I mean, they all have different themes, like celebrities or comedy or whatever. But this invites so much more wisdom and truth. and diversity, think, all different kinds of people and stories and backgrounds and cultures. And the list goes on and on and on about all the different kinds of people we're going to have on here and the different stories that one another will hear. I think that that's a really cool. I don't know if that's necessarily something that I hope people take, but I think it's a really cool invitation for people. ah I love that. I love that. Ramoth, what do hope people get out of this? Growing up, I used to really love The Ellen DeGeneres Show. uh I love that. I still love Jimmy Fallon and then Jimmy Kimmel and all the late night shows, Stephen Colbert. And when I think about them and I think ah a lot about the... people they have on and the stories they have to tell. And I go back to the Ellen DeGeneres show because, know, some uh one of her taglines was, um was it? God, I can't remember her tagline, but it had to something with kindness. it had to do something with kindness. like a lot of, um yeah, she used to have a lot of uh people whose stories used to go unnoticed and bring them to life. Right. And I like that. And I think that I want people to listen, laugh, and at the end of the day, take away. a s- a story that resonates with you or a moral or a lesson that resonates with you. See yourself in someone else so you feel a little less lonely or you feel a little bit more seen. uh And I think that a lot of people are going to be able to find themselves in the guests that we plan to have, but also be inspired. Moved. We have... uh Truly an amazing lineup of guests for this podcast and I think that like I said so many stories in Winnipeg that go unheard and You'll get to see what makes Winnipeg the great diverse tapestry that it is well and if I can add on to your point and I was thinking about this when you asked me the question about What makes a good story and we were talking about how stories have to relate so much but I also would argue that a good story can also challenge people and so I think that that could be something you get from the podcast as well is uh hearing a story or thought or a perspective that challenges what you believe or what you thought about the world or a situation or even just understanding humanity. just give a little bit of uh deep homework to everyone. love that. I think stories are a listening to someone's story is a bit of a safe way to do that. And you can listen to a story that challenges you. It can evoke curiosity. You may not like the outcome, but it gives you that invitation to process that a little bit more. Right. So I love those invitations. And if I think about what I hope people can get out of this is I hope it encourages people to tell more stories. And for those who get frustrated with grandpa telling the same story for the 100th time, I hope that this is an invitation to. feel a little bit more compassion for grandpa. because even though Rafa may be telling the same story, there'd be something new in that story with the retelling of that story. He's retelling me because you didn't learn it with us. Yeah. So really, it's about me. Yeah. Who knows? I don't know. But I love it. I'll be mean. Yeah. And it's just true. We learn so much more. We forget that. People who share stories with us have lived entire lifetimes. So that's one thing I hope that people can get out of it. The other thing that I hope people get out of this is even though we've talked about, you know, what makes a really good story, there's really no right or wrong story. There's no right or wrong way to start to bookend a story. I think you just start telling it's something as simple as like what happened earlier today. to what happened in world. And I over time, we can get to tell better stories, tell them in more ways, like aging and also as listeners, by both of this serves as a good invitation to gain a little bit more attention, a little bit more deep thinking to how we listen to stories. agree. I also think we're not like setting out to reinvent the... wheel in any way. think stories are part of everyone's lives. Exactly. awesome, family. That's the best way to... Yeah, we're using the tea. Yeah, what's the tea? Fill the tea. And I like that because that's just what this is, right? We're at the end of the day, and we're just sitting down, and we would in a living room at home. just talking. and having a good conversation. Great. Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining us today and looking forward to bringing this to life. Thank so much for having us. you. Bye. You