nilch’i

Diné (Navajo) term for the Holy Wind — the atmosphere as a single, living, aware presence that grants life, movement, speech, and awareness to all beings. Not a metaphor but a description of reality in which the air you breathe is the same awareness that animates everything else. The "wind within one" (nilch'i hwii'siziinii) is not a personal soul but a portion of the encompassing Wind. Early missionaries mistook it for the Christian soul; it is closer to the medium in which all souls swim.