Around us lays a meadow, vast and green, each plant swaying, the entire field undulating with a syncopated beat. Lazily we drift, kick, and drift some more; occasionally we brush tiny flowers barely held above the leaves, their anthers ripe with long strings of pollen. Here is a lawn that has never felt the wind; a landscape never parched by a summer sun. No spider has ever spun a web, linking one leaf to another, reflecting each dawn from delicate, dew-soaked filigrees. No child has every run across its soft leaves shrieking with delight at each new wonder discovered, not in this meadow, not here at the bottom of the sea!

But we are child-like as we explore the Neptune grass, a veritable Garden of Eden. Life abounds on every surface, nook, and cranny - in an orgy of colors, shapes, and patterns - from the macroscopic to the microscopic. And there! Deep within the grass, a long dark body with rich golden speckles, the serpent. Its mouth is parted. To pour forth honey-dipped words of knowledge and rebellion? If so, I am deaf to their meaning, my ears numbed by the chilly waters and I see only the teeth. Mesmerized, I move closer and the image of my primal fears and desires dissolves, for this is not Satan, but rather a startled moray eel searching for dinner among the grass and rocks. Its fearsome mouth is not a gesture to terrorize and dominate, it gaps with the need to draw oxygen-laden water across its gills, to breathe. No, the eel is nothing of mine to possess or destroy, to fear or to love. It is only a fellow creature, a chance meeting, something beautiful to observe and admire, and perhaps, if I'm lucky and patient, to understand. I take a deep breath, adjusting my new burden of wonder and delight. Drift, kick, and drift, as once again I softly glide across the fields of Nature.