Uranus, the planet we associate with rebellion, innovation, and change, is in Aries as of Thursday, May 27. We won’t get far into pioneering territory before he turns retrograde and returns to Pisces for several months, but we’ll have a chance to explore and experiment.

Simply put, Pisces is about dreaming, imagining, and reflecting. Aries is about doing. We’ve had seven years to reflect on our dreams and visions for the future, how we want our world to be. Uranus in Aries now asks, “So what are you going to do about it?”

Pisces is, among other things, about our beliefs. Ruled by Neptune, Pisces can be wonderfully imaginative and spiritual or totally delusional. Blind faith falls within this category. There are many forms of blind faith. Usually we think of it in terms of organized religion, but it can apply equally to blind faith in our government, blind faith in our societal values, and blind faith in our political and economic system.

How many people do you know who say they have faith in the system, just not the current elected officials who are running it? At some point, we’re going to need to realize that it just isn’t working, and then what?

The 29th degree of every sign is sensitive, but this is particularly true for the 29th degree of Pisces, the last degree of the zodiac and known as the “weeping degree.” Venus stationed there last year after a retrograde period in Aries, sensitizing this degree even further. It was a special moment in time, when Susan Boyle created an overnight sensation with a song about a broken dream.

As Uranus crossed 29 degrees Pisces, protests were rampant in the euro zone, and oil gushed unchecked into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s well a mile under the surface. What beliefs are we being asked to sacrifice? If you don’t have an answer yet, you’ll know by March 11, 2011, when Uranus re-enters Aries for a seven-year stint, much of which will be in a politically volatile square with Pluto in Capricorn.

In the ingress chart set for Washington D.C., Ceres is rising, conjunct Pluto and square Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn. This suggests that the biggest issue for the United States will involve the environment. Set for Brussels, the ingress chart has 13 Aries on the Ascendant, with Ceres and Pluto on the Midheaven. This also suggests issues of food supply and an impending environmental crisis.

As much as we’d like to blame BP for this disaster and force them to pay, that will not solve the underlying problem. The way the scenario is playing out, BP may be sacrificed (but more likely not) so that oil drilling and the obscene profits being reaped by oil companies at the expense of the environment can go forward unimpeded. If you watched President Obama’s press conference on May 27, you know this to be true. He said BP would pay, but offshore oil drilling would continue.

We are dependent on fossil fuels, period. And exploiting fossil fuels has dire environmental consequences. That is a fact. We are addicted and disempowered. How will we reclaim that power and remake the world according to our vision of love, joy, and abundance? Is it even possible? Should we even try? Or should we adjust our beliefs to be more “realistic?” Should we accept that we can’t meet our material needs without lasting, long-term damage to our food chain and life-support system? Will we keep searching for some technological fix (also the realm of Uranus) to make it possible to have all of this and a clean environment, too? When, exactly, can we expect that to happen?

Uranus in Aries requires us to act, and I would add that we’re at a point in the evolution of human consciousness when it’s imperative that we act in accordance with our values. Some people will take this as their cue to participate in mass demonstrations. That’s not inappropriate, and it’s probably inevitable. For the next five years, Uranus will remain in a close square with Pluto, suggesting massive political unrest. As I mentioned above, this unrest is likely to be related to the breakdown of the environment and food supply chain.

However, limiting your actions to political protests is a bit like going to church on Sunday and then acting wantonly the rest of the week, without regard to whether you’re being kind and maintaining your integrity. Acting must include changing our fundamental beliefs to shift into a different way of living and being.

This can’t happen overnight. But it’s something to start working on while we’re working to change the world.