I wish I could show you the pictures I saw last night. Dr. Sylvia A. Earle was in Bozeman to give the Montana State University Friends of Stegner Lecture. This deep-ocean explorer who is currently the Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society is a woman who has made and is making a difference in the collective health of our planet by sharing with us her deep ocean work.

She has inspired many young women to take up the course of marine biology including Helen Scales who has just had published “Poseidon’s Steed.” Helen Scales and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California have inspired me to write this blog and the essay I’m posting as part of it.

Dr. Earle ended her lecture is the message of hope that has been shared by Jane Goodall – that it is not too late for all the creatures who share the earth and water including ourselves. We can learn from past mistakes and inspire our children to do better in the future.

Dancers in the Ocean

The fragment of a sinuous tango undulates through me. Only the press of dozens of children surrounding me on a busy holiday weekend prevents the possibility of a duet.

“Look at the dragon, mommy!” A toddler knocks on the acrylic wall separating me from the dancer.

A swiveling yellow eye stares at me through the wall that separates water from air, fish from woman. As I stare back a strand of energy like spider’s silk connects us. He has borrowed a crown from an elfin princess. His gown is adorned with leaf-like appendages. They drift downwards. They are held aloft. They rival the beauty of any tree in the wood. These many appendages move with the currents in the water of the tank but they do not propel this faerie version of a fish through his element. He moves by fluttering tiny fins at the top of his head, beside his gills and near the end of his body. I am held in his spell.

I break my eyes away from the first leafy sea dragon that swam toward me and scan the tank for others. They blend perfectly into the kelp and sea grasses provided in their refuge. Miniature horses’ heads nod in unison. They twirl around in perfect pirouettes. I long to dance with them, to hear their music. To have gills for a few hours and become weightless. Can I somehow melt through the plastic wall and become sea dragon?

“Welcome to the Seahorse exhibit of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you wish to take pictures of the fish in the tanks, please do not use flash.”

Fish? Seahorses are fish? How can anything that fires my imagination into worlds of gods and goddesses, Poseidon’s golden chariot and lost worlds be a fish? Scientists prevail, according to a sign on the wall beside the tank. The world outside the tank crashes in. Dreams of spring-green leafy gowns and dancing sea tangos vanish like Cinderella’s coach at midnight.

I meander through the schools of crowds toward the Aquarium gift shop.

“Excuse me, do you have any leafy sea dragons?”

“Over there, ma’am.” There’s a post card, a silver pin, and a magnet with leafy sea dragon designs. Nothing sparks my interest.

“Anything else?”

“You might be interested in this book.”

“Poseidon’s Steed—The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality.” I buy it. I support the research work of the Aquarium with my purchase. I read the book from cover to cover at the hotel and then on the plane trip from California to Montana. I skip lunch. I am entertained with the myths and then, by degrees saddened by what is happening to the homes of these tiny creatures surely created by a goddess with a sense of humor. How can anyone capture, dry, grind up or eat a 1-6 inch being with the head of a horse, pouch of a kangaroo and tail of a monkey, or with a sinuous leafy green body?

I miss my new friends when I am in my home too far from the sea to hear the surf or swim among the underwater fields of grasses with them. I surf the Monterey Bay Aquarium web site and become a fan of “Herbie Hippocampus” on facebook. I learn about the creatures that share their neighborhoods—the strawberry crab who loves the sandy sea bottom near Taiwan or the Vampire squid. This animal—neither vampire nor squid—lives a half mile deep in the ocean where the light is very dim. What else is waiting to be discovered?

Will the ocean notice if all the seahorses and sea dragons are captured for home or restaurant aquariums, used in medicines, or sold in shell shops? Most likely not. But what I believe is that we are all better off just knowing there are seahorses swimming wild in the oceans. That they are absolutely important—along with tigers, chimpanzees, macaws and all other wild beings—for the sake of the health of our imaginations.