Of course, we could easily see that if he would simply back up or fly down he would see that he wasn't actually trapped at all, he could fly out in any direction. But, he didn't. He had trapped himself. As we watched, a hummingbird flew under the umbrella straight at the bee. It hovered right by him, almost poking him with his beak, and then turned and showed him the way out from beneath the umbrella.

Did the bee follow? No. He continued to struggle with the top of the umbrella until Del took the umbrella off the post, turned it upside down, and the bee flew up and away.

How often do we do this in our life? We "fly" into a situation and then try to get out of it in a direction that will never work. If we would pause, or back up, or look around we would see there is always a different way out. Sometimes a friendly "hummingbird" will come right up to us and try to get our attention so we can follow her to freedom.

In the song, Me and Bobby McGee, there is the phrase; "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." There are two ways to look at this sentence. One is that once everything is gone there is nothing left to lose, or once you realize that you have nothing that can be lost you are free.

In the movie, Star Wars, Jedi Master Yodi tells Anakin that, "The fear of loss is the path to the dark side." Afraid of losing something, we trade in our freedom for something with which we are familiar. In the case of the bee, the top of the umbrella became very familiar because he was used to "flying up" to get away. But this familiarity and his unwillingness to let go of how "he" thought it should be, placed him in his own personal prison.

We all put ourselves in a personal prison. Just like the bee, it is the prison of our own thinking. When we think we need something, or want something we are bound to it. Not by the thing itself, but by our thinking that we need it and don't yet have it. The only thing that ever needs to be "fixed" is our perception.

It is our point of view that is always the trap, and at the same time it is always the open door. When we choose, and then stay with, a point of view that all we have is what we can gather around us and own, that work provides income, that companionship provides love, and that the loss of anything means we no longer have it, we are trapped within our own personal prison.

If we choose the point of view that the things that we have gathered, the income we receive, and the love that we have, are all an outcome and proof of the fact that we are the evidence and knowing of the One God which is the Infinite Intelligence that Is all, than we are freed from our prison. This point of view knows that where we are - so is all that we need.

There is a story about a boy in Sunday school. The teacher asked the children if they would be afraid if they found themselves alone in the middle of the ocean. All of them said, "yes" except one small boy. He said, "No I wouldn't be afraid." The Sunday school teacher asked him, "Why not?" He said, "Because God would be there with me." The Sunday school teacher asked him, "How do you know for sure He would be there?" The boy replied, "Because I was there." This point of view is the key to freedom. The small boy knew that where he was, God was, and therefore there was nothing to fear or to lose.

We all have a friendly "hummingbird" that has shown us the way out of any trap that we have flown into. There are people in the past and present that dedicated their lives to show us the way to freedom. We just have to become aware of them, watch where and how they got out, and follow their example. It would be so much easier to follow them then to wait until our whole world is turned upside down before we can be set free.

Beca Lewis ©2006

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*Article by Beca Lewis author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit The Shift for more original content like this. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.