Ring of Fire Eclipse Moon Shadows

I've always loved (and been curious about) how leaves distort the path of light waves. If I were to speculate, I would guess that maybe they... actually, who are we kidding? I have no idea, plain and simple. Anyone out there who can help?

So I'll admit that I don't quite get the mechanism, but when you combine that weirdness with the Ring of Fire eclipse that occurred a couple of days ago, what you get is a thing of beauty: