A naked face for the new year . . .

Wednesday, December 31, 2025. It's Odin's day … light, variable Westerlies bring warmer conditions to TulseyTown this afternoon. Sunny skies and mid 60's are indicated in the forecasts. It's New Year's Eve and some people will be wearing another mask for fun tonight.

[T]here is a reason we move through the world masked — there is nothing more vulnerable than the naked face of the soul. Emerson knew this: “There is no terror like that of being known,” he wrote as he was falling in love with his friend Margaret Fuller and resisting it. – – Maria Popova, “When Friends Become Lovers: H.G.Wells,” in The Marginalian, 12.28.25

The first ball was dropped at Times Square in New York City to celebrate New Year's Eve on this day in 1907.

Some significant navigators of The Way were born yesterday.

Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland turned 64. The prolific author who coined the term “Generation X” was born on a military base in 1961 Baden-Solingen, Germany; Patti Smith turned 79 yesterday. The singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author, photographer and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was born in 1946, Chicago, Illinois; Tiger Woods is now 50. He was on yesterday's date in 1975, Cypress, California; and LeBron James was born in 1984, Akron, Ohio;

Birthdays today include Henri Matisse, the artist often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century, was born in 1869 Le Cateau, Picardy, France; and George C. Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff during World War II (1939–45), U.S secretary of state (1947–49) and of defense (1950–51), architect of the Marshall Plan for European recovery, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953, was born in 1880 Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

Sophie's “Sensorial Portraiture” for her 2025. – Sophie Strand, in Make Me Good Soil, 12.31.25

Patti Smith envisions a peaceable kingdom.