After several years of tackling subjects on Native American roots and survival, Northeastern State University will reach for the skies with the 36th Annual Symposium on the American Indian.

The symposium, held on NSU’s Tahlequah campus, runs Wednesday through Saturday with the theme “the Sun, the Moon, the Stars: RHYTHMS OF LIFE.”

“The theme reflects how Indians use rhythms in the cycle of life,” said Dedi Snell, staff assistant for the NSU Center for Tribal Studies. “The rhythms of life tell us when to plant crops, when to hold ceremonies.”

Instead of focusing on issues, this year’s Symposium focuses on how Native Americans relate to the heavenly bodies through science, music, and poetry.

Pulitzer prize winning author N. Scott Momaday, Oklahoma’s Centennial Poet Laureate, will read some of his poetry at a luncheon Friday in the Sen. Herb Rozell Ballroom. A Lawton native of Cherokee and Kiowa descent, Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 for his novel, “House made of Dawn,” a story based on the lives of his ancestors.

Momaday is involved in supporting efforts of indigenous communities to preserve cultural identity.

Retired astronaut John Herrington, a Chickasaw Nation member from Wetumka, will give a keynote speech on “Living Your Dreams,” at 10 a.m. Thursday.

William Iseminger of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville, Ill., will speak on how mound builders at Cahokia and at Spiro in Oklahoma, aligned structures with the position of the sun. His presentation will be at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Keynote speaker Robert Conley of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees will speak at 11:30 a.m. Thursday about how Native Americans studied the skies before Columbus arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1492.

The Symposium also will feature stickball games, a cornstalk shooting competition and coronation of the Native American Student Association queen. The symposium will culminate with a powwow on April 19.

“Last year’s conference was serious and somewhat somber,” Snell said. “This year, we wanted to make it lighter, a little less somber.”

If you go

WHAT: 36th Annual Symposium on the American Indian.