When sung, traditional Diné believe, Navajo songs have the powerful ability to attract hózhó and positive events into a person's life.

For 10 youngsters belonging to the Morning Star Leaders Youth Council, a Native youth organization, based in the Phoenix metro area, the Navajo songs they shared over the weekend blessed them with a unique opportunity to spend a day learning and creating art with legendary Navajo artist Baje Whitethorne, Sr. at his homestead in Flagstaff on Sunday.

As Cherokee National Treasure Tim Grayson inspects a large Bois d'arc tree, he can see the bows he will produce from it before he cuts it down.

In his mind he divides the logs harvested from the tree and knows once the wood is aged he will have plenty of bow-making material. Once the wood is split and the bark and sapwood is gone, "a solid piece of hardwood" is left, Grayson said.

Coconino Community College was recently ranked 29th in the country as a top associate degree producer for Native Americans students. The College jumped 20 spots compared to last year. The designation comes from Community College Week, a national magazine.

I was looking at the North Dakota state map that's pegged to my office wall. I don't know what it is, maybe it was a recent trip out to Heháka Wakpá Makhoche (Elk River Country, or Theodore Roosevelt National Park) and I was in the mood to learn what the Dakota-Lakota people called places before explorers, traders, and settlers arrived.

In response to the obesity epidemic on the Navajo reservation the Wings of America are once again using its muscle to educate the youth about making healthy lifestyle choices.

According to a report by the Legislative branch, the obesity rate in 2009 within in the eight service units of the Navajo Area Indian Health Service range from 23% to 60% for all age groups while the overweight rate ranged from 17% to 39%.

Native games, neuroscience, and historical trauma--they sound like an odd trio but collectively may provide answers to problems across Indian country. Educators, researchers, and youngsters from Alberta, Saskatchewan, the western U.S. and Alaska, even as far away as Delhi, India gathered at the First International Traditional Native Games Conference in Pablo, Montana on June 26-28.

Less than 2 percent of American broadcasters are Native Americans and those numbers aren't getting much better with few young Native Americans going into broadcasting.

But Northern Arizona University's (NAU) Broadcasting Department and the Arizona Broadcasters Association hope to change that fact. The second annual NAU Native American Broadcast Camp took place June 16-22 at NAU. The camp helps give Native American high school students the skills, motivation and knowledge they need to go into broadcasting careers.

This year's Cherokee Youth Garden at Kituwah is not only outside of the box; it's outside of the lines. The outside rows of the garden are laid out in various traditional Cherokee patterns as opposed to straight rows.

"We're trying to go from the straight row method to something more meaningful, more interesting," said Karrie Joseph, one of the coordinators of the Healthy Roots grant which is helping facilitate this year's garden.

More than just a canoe has been under construction in the front yard of a home on Corby Avenue.

The band of amateur boat builders who've been creating the rare replica a Native American vessel are also rebuilding a sense of community shattered by history.

"This is a symbol of our cultural revitalization," said L. Frank Manriquez, an artist and member of the tiny Tongva tribe, whose homeland is in present day Los Angeles.

This month, the Cheyenne River Youth Project is celebrating a special addition to its operation, an all new website at www.lakotayouth.org.

Features include the latest news and photos, a full press room with access to articles dating back to 2008, a multimedia library with Christmas Toy Drive and Passion for Fashion videos as well as Cheyenne River Youth Project's acclaimed youth diabetes prevention campaign, and detailed information about staff and board members, the organization's finances, youth programs and Family Services.

Evelyn Numkena says it takes about five minutes to make one sheet of piki, which is cooked on a hot stone until dry.

"Then you do another one," said the young Shongopavi Village native from Second Mesa, Ariz. as she dipped her fingers in the batter of blue cornmeal and reed bush ash. She rubbed it onto the highly heated, hard sedimentary rock that has been passed down through generations.

Some of the traditional Native cedar canoes participating in the 2013 Paddle to Quinault can be tracked online at www.tinyurl.com/K77zryw.

The site, which is updated every 10 minutes, features the progress of canoes from the Heiltsuk and T’Sou-Ke First Nations of Canada; and the Grand Ronde, Lower Elwha, Muckleshoot, Squaxin Island, Swinomish and Warm Springs.

The Osage Nation Language Department took 70 Osages to Colorado Springs for four days to retrace the footsteps of their ancestors.

"Colorado has been quite a familiar place to go during vacation time for our people and I thought it would be a pretty good touch to go back there," said Herman "Mogri" Lookout, Osage Nation Language Department director.

What began as a small community gathering to promote the power of the Ojibwe language in Minnesota blossomed this year into a celebration larger than its organizers ever imagined.

Nagaajiwanaang Ojibwe Language Camp in Sawyer started five years ago with about 190 people gathering for family activities and speaking Ojibwemowin. This year, that mid-June camp attracted more than 1,200 people over four days, and organizers are looking forward to increased numbers next year.

Navajo Cake Takes Teamwork To Make And Eat

Wood burned inside a three-foot-wide pit, crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies. The treat to be baked inside: alkaan (Navajo cake).

According to the apron-wearing ladies who huddled beneath the tent a few feet away from the fire pit, alkaan is typically made during a kinaaldá - the morphing ceremony when a young Diné girl crosses over to womanhood - and is made a certain way followed by songs and prayers. Both the cake and ceremony represent Changing Woman, who was the first to have her kinaaldá.

In May 2013, First Nations announced it received a substantial grant from The Kresge Foundation that we’ll use to help improve numerous American Indian nonprofit organizations in urban or metropolitan locations. The project will accomplish this by helping build the capacity of those organizations, which means we’ll provide tailored training and technical assistance that will help them better organize, strategize, manage and grow their organizations. In turn, they will become stronger, more efficient and more effective in achieving their missions.

We're all familiar with the phrase "waste not, want not," but how well are we applying these words today?

For many of us, we buy more than we need, we spend more than we earn, we eat more than our fill. The consequence of excessive living and waste affect not only us, but also our global neighbors and future generations.

Quinoa (ki:nwa), Spanish: quinua, from Quechua: kinwa), a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the true grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beetroots, spinach and tumbleweeds.

Honoring Nature

Elk Are Thriving In Park

Re-introduced to the area 12 years ago, elk have quickly become a stately symbol of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and surrounding areas. When the elk are in the fields at Cataloochee or at the Oconaluftee Visitors Center, cars filled with tourists line up to catch a view of the majestic animals.

"As far as I am concerned, the reintroduction of the elk into Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been one of the most exciting events for western North Carolinians from all walks of life," said Joyce Cooper who is the North Carolina state chairperson for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF), and the co-chairperson of the Great Smoky Mountains Chapter of the RMEF. "I traveled 2,000 miles to Yellowstone National Park to see my first elk, never dreaming that twenty years later I could drive five miles to show family and friends this magnificent animal."

Yellowstone Bison Revitalize Prairie on Fort Peck Reservation in One Year

Robbie Magnan, Manager of the Fort Peck Tribes Game and Fish Department, picks us up from our hotel in Wolf Point, Montana right at noon. His smile and good mood are infectious. To him, any day he gets to take people out to see the Yellowstone Bison is a good day.

He is taking us to see the Yellowstone Bison that the Tribes, the National Wildlife Federation and other partners successfully transferred to tribal lands last March. Robbie’s basic message? The bison and the native wildlife and plants that rely on the bison are thriving. New songbirds are coming through that they’ve never seen before. Native grasses and wildflowers are thriving in the bison pasture. The bison have restored balance to the land.

Experts: Traditional Diné Teachings Will Help Troubled Youth

"From what we understand by a lot of the researches done, yes," said coordinator of the 2013 Youth Culture Festival, Lucy Laughter-Begay. "It builds resiliency, meaning if they know where they are coming from, the strong identity will help them face the challenges they have."

Using traditional teachings to address issues such drug addiction, bullying and suicide among youth was among the topics discussed during the event, which was sponsored by the Tséhootsooí Medical Center's Methamphetamine Suicide Prevention Initiative and held last week.

Ancient DNA Linked To Living Descendants In Genetic Study

What if you could trace your ancestry back to around 5,000 years ago? Researchers were able to do just that in a fascinating new DNA study, which found a direct genetic link between the ancient remains of Native Americans and their living relatives.

"It's very exciting to be able to have scientific proof that corroborates what our ancestors have been telling us for generations," study co-author and participant Joycelynn Mitchell said in a written statement. "It's very amazing how fast technology is moving to be able to prove this kind of link with our past."

Chickasaw Nation Artist & Historian Jeannie Barbour Named Oklahoma Illustrator of 2013

The Chickasaw Nation proudly announces renowned artist and historian Jeannie Barbour has been named Illustrator of 2013 by the Oklahoma Chapter of the International Society for Key Women Educators.

Delta Kappa Gamma cited her art work in Chikasha Stories, Volume One: Shared Spirit.

Navajo Dubbed 'Star Wars' a Crowd Pleaser at Premier

The original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope premiered nationwide in1977, but the characters based in a galaxy far, far away were brought a little closer to home during the Navajo dubbed film premiere on June 30 at the El Morro Theater.

"It has a lot of humor in it," said 2012-2013 Miss Navajo Nation Leandra Thomas adding that she caught herself smiling throughout the whole movie. "I've never seen any of the Star Wars movies and it made a lot of sense seeing it once (and) in the Navajo language."