Limestone rock outcrops lay scattered across the sandy bottom like oases in a desert, their surfaces coated with yellow, red, and lavender sponges and sea squirts and soft corals. Unlike a desert, the sandy, open areas were also full of life, but most of what lived in them was small and hidden beneath the surface. Whatever fish were present had darted away as I dove into the water. The green, murky water was itself alive, full of innumerable microscopic plants and animals, too small for me to see individually. Sea whips covered the rocks like a forest. About two feet high, they looked a lot like bare-branched trees in winter except that they were bright yellow, purple, or orange. Their branches were encased in a white fuzz of feeding tentacles, which captured microscopic food out of the current as the tide rose.

A cynic once observed, "We can't imagine that there is nothing more to life than just the experience of the moments between birth and death. That would be too absurd! Our existence. . . must have some greater meaning, and if the universe won't tell us what it is, then we will have to make something up." Watching the tiny shrimp and snails on the sea whips, I realized that those moments between birth and death are exactly what we have in life. If we just pay full attention to each of them as we live it, the universe will tell us what it's about. And I strongly suspected that it was as much about sea whips and snails as it was about humans.