Morning Lights

A few mornings back, during a communion of hyper cold and humid air before this week's warming, I woke to see lights in the trees. 

Not on the trunks and no slick, icy skin on the branches. The lights were exceptionally difficult to photograph, but quite magical with eyes alone. It made me wonder about the origins of lighting trees, if not Christmas lights specifically. So why did it happen, why now?

I went around the front, and found that all the smaller branches were frosted.

Like this.

Each crystal a plate extending perpendicular from the branch. Some, but not all, were at just the right angle to reflect the low, morning sun creating little points of brilliant light. If you move, you lose one light, but pick up new reflections from others. It's quite a thing to see.