(December 22-January 19)

The year starts out with a bang, and keeps on popping. Change floods your personal and professional life, and the shape-shifting continues for the whole 2010. On January 15th, a Capricorn solar eclipse marks your personal new year, thrusting you into the limelight or down an unfamiliar solo path. This is new terrain, and you’re feeling a wee bit vulnerable, to say the least. Are you comfortable on those skinny branches? Heck no.

Keep climbing anyway, Cappy. If the bough threatens to snap, fear not—you’ll soon find plenty of people to break your fall. On the 17th, expansive Jupiter enters Pisces, your third house of communication, siblings and friends. It’s a year of exciting ideas, new lessons and fascinating kindred spirits. With Mercury retrograde (backward) in Capricorn until the 15th, you’ll also take a hard look at your past actions. You might not like everything you see. However, you can only learn from mistakes and change the future. When the Sun enters Aquarius on the 19th, assess your values and check your confidence levels. Insecurity can tempt you to make unscrupulous moves, but they’ll only come back to haunt you. Do the right thing, Capricorn.

Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Friday.