Every human being is adopted into something.

For anyone who carries a culture handed to them. Pick up one thread, choose what to carry forward, and see where it meets others.

Choose a thread →

We’re adopted into families, schools, communities, workplaces, countries, and belief systems. What adoptees live explicitly, the rest of the world is now living implicitly: global migration, multicultural identity, and digital fragmentation mean we all carry threads inherited before we had a say. Adopting Threads™ is a four-phase way to make sense of the threads you carry, and to choose which ones to carry forward.

An adult hand and a child's hand holding each other

Four phases. One identity timeline.

Choose a thread

For anyone who carries a culture handed to them.

Walk one thread through the four phases. At the end, see your thread woven into a tapestry of your own, and if you choose, add it to the community map below, with no name.

The community mapSee the map

This is how connection grows inside the Cultural Navigation System™ itself. As more people move through their own four phases, the platform surfaces where threads overlap, so connection grows from inside the system, woven in from the start.

Culturally Speaking® Community™

One thread runs through all of us

Map key

On the map

  • Red thread through every region with a thread
  • Lit region, 5 or more threads
  • Fewer than 5 threads so far
  • Your region

Ring colors: kinds of thread

    A region lights once 5 threads arrive from people who live there. Small numbers show as ranges, kinds of thread appear once 5 threads in a region share a kind, and the map updates hourly. The map shows counts only, never names.

    Explore by region

    Tap a region on the map or below to see its threads.

      Community Tapestry

      Every thread becomes a strand

      Each thread added fills one square of a shared quilt of 3,000 squares. Colors appear once 5 threads share a kind, the same rule as the map. Updated hourly.

      The whole tapestry: 30 blocks, one for every 100 threads

        Making the physical piece: we are creating a short list of artists for the artwork. We'll share each step once it is confirmed.

        The digital tapestry is an illustration. The finished piece will be designed with the artist.

        Children and adults lean over a lit map table in a museum

        Follow the Community Tapestry

        Get an email at each milestone, and hear first when the community opens.

        Made from many threads. Meant to be seen together.

        Want to tell the whole story behind your thread? Share your story

        For organizations: see The System