My name is Chris, and tonight, I will be your  guide as we embark on a journey – sleepy retelling  

of the classic, beloved tale - the Little Prince,  one of the most translated books in history.  

We will travel to distant planets,  find creativity in unexpected places,  

and learn one of the most important lessons of all  – you can only see things clearly with your heart;  

the most important things  are invisible to the eyes.

Before we begin, however, let us take a moment  to relax and find comfort in the space that we  

are in here and now. Close your eyes and allow  your body to sink into the mattress beneath you.

With your eyes closed, take a deep breath.  Turn your attention for a moment to the way  

your body feels. Notice the points of your  body that are in contact with the mattress.  

The weight of your legs sinking into  the soft bed. The comfortable sheets  

that are smooth and cool against your  skin. The way the pillow cradles your head,  

giving it a place to rest and refresh. Feel  the way the blankets lie against your skin,  

embracing you and welcoming you to this  safe place of comfort and relaxation.

Now, search your body for any tension  or heaviness you may be carrying.  

Perhaps there are aches and pains that have  come to the forefront tonight. If there are,  

we will take a few minutes now to slowly  ease any discomfort or tension together.

Start by slowly, slowly breathing in  while tensing your hands and arms.  

Clench your fists together and pull your  arms together as tightly as you can.  

Hold that tension for one, two, three, four… and  now, release it completely with a full exhale.  

Feel the soothing energy that washes  over your arms and hands as you  

free them from that tension  you’ve been carrying with you.

Then, move to your torso. Tense your stomach  and chest, inhaling slowly as you do so.  

Hold that tension for one, two, three,  four… and release it with an exhale. 

Take another deep breath in,  

noticing how sweet that deep breath feels  as it enters your lungs, and exhale.

Now, move down from your torso to your legs. With  a slow inhale, tense all the muscles in your legs  

as tightly as you can. Hold that tension for one,  

two, three, four… and release it with a full  exhale. Feel that warmth and relaxation surge  

through your legs as any tension  you’ve been carrying melts away.

And finally, turn your attention  to your head and your shoulders.  

While inhaling slowly, bring your shoulders up  toward your ears, clench your teeth - and tense  

any muscles you can in your face. Hold your breath  and feel that pressure building for one, two,  

three, four… until finally, you release it  completely. Feel a new sense of clarity,  

a new refreshing energy swirl over your head,  freeing you of any weight you were carrying there.

At any point on our journey into  the kingdom of the Little Prince,  

know that you can return to this exercise  to relieve any tension you may be feeling.  

It is something you can come back to  at any time to calm you and ground you.

Now that we have taken the time to find comfort  in the space that we are in here and now,  

let us begin our story.

When he was just six years old, a gifted boy  decided to be an artist. His very first childhood  

drawing wasn’t one of the sun, or flowers, or his  parents… it was a picture of a boa constrictor  

digesting an elephant. When he proudly  showed it to the adults around him,  

many of them congratulated him on his drawing of a  hat. Confused by their inability to recognize the  

story he was telling with his art, he moved on to  draw Drawing Number Two… showing a cross-section  

of a boa constrictor with an elephant inside it,  so it would be quite obvious even to grown-ups.

While other children were excited by his drawing  - the adults he showed it to shook their heads.  

It was so tiresome for the children to be  constantly explaining things to adults.  

They encouraged the young boy to give  up drawing and the arts altogether.  

Why didn’t he try focusing on geography,  arithmetic, or grammar instead?  

So, instead of pursuing the arts, he turned his  attention to becoming a pilot. At least then,  

he’d be able to soar high above the clouds and  see the world from a whole new perspective.

Because the one perspective he had that  was unmoving was his perception of adults.  

Although claiming to be  concerned with ‘important things’  

these grown-ups were just too  sensible for their own good.  

And to test this, he would show every adult he  encountered his Drawing Number One. And every  

adult that saw the drawing would, without  fail, say that the drawing was of a hat.  

Hence, the boy knew they lacked true understanding  and that he could not talk to these adults about  

rainforests, or stars, or the random, fanciful  thoughts that made their way through his mind.  

Instead, he could only talk to them about  sensible things, like politics and neckties.

For quite some time, the pilot was  lonely in this world of adults.  

But then, one fateful day, everything changed.

Because on that day, he solemnly  decided to embark on a solo journey.  

He hopped in his own little plane and  took to the skies. High above the world,  

he could often find a kind of peace that  seemed impossible to reach on the ground.  

He loved sailing high above the cottony clouds,  

feeling the weight of gravity disappear  beneath him as he lifted higher and higher  

into the heavens. He loved the way the golden  sun reflected off the tops of the clouds,  

causing them to shimmer and shine  in that breathtaking orange glow.

He loved the way the world looked so  small, yet so magical at the same time.  

He could see raging rivers be reduced to a  lace of blue and turquoise winding its way  

through the countryside. He could watch the  mountains as they transformed from towering,  

otherworldly behemoths to craggy  bumps rising up out of the earth,  

bringing with them a mosaic  of greens and browns and tans.  

Looking out over the countryside as a whole  was something that always took his breath away.  

He could see from those craggy mountain cliffs  

all the way to the sparkling sea in the distance  that stretched on and on to the horizon.

But on this fateful day, the pilot was flying  somewhere that was perhaps even more remarkable.  

He took to the skies high above the  Sahara Desert - one of the most isolated,  

desolate, and lonely places in the world.

But up from the sky… it was  also one of the most beautiful.  

The desert sand was a stunning  array of colors and shapes.  

The sand was utterly smooth and without blemishes  for miles on end like an endless sea of calm.  

Then out of nowhere, giant dunes seemed  to reach up to kiss the baby blue sky.  

There were trails in the sand,  swirls and brilliant designs  

that made it seem like nature itself was  using the sand as its artistic canvas.

The pilot loved every second of  flying over the Sahara Desert.  

It reminded him of the magic and beauty  of the world. But… he never expected  

that he would be seeing this wild and  wonderful landscape up close and personal.

Suddenly, his plane began to creak and  groan in the air. He began to lose altitude,  

and it became incredibly apparent that his  plane was going down. As calmly as possible,  

he clung to the controls and guided  the plane down, down to the sand.

He watched as the dunes grew closer and closer  to him, until they were towering over him.  

He landed with a crash, sending sand flying  up into the simmering air in giant plumes.  

It wasn’t the most pleasant landing, but he  was relieved to find that he was all right.  

He hadn’t been injured in the crash.

However, his plane’s engine  was broken. He stumbled out  

onto the sand, listening to the crunch  of it underneath his boots. It was clear  

that his plane wasn’t going to be flying anytime  soon. He found himself in quite a predicament.  

From the sky, he had seen that there were  no people, no homes, no resources for miles.  

And here he was, with few supplies  and no one to look to for help.

Or… was there someone to look to for help? It  was when he was doodling with a pencil and paper  

that he first realized he wasn’t alone. A small,  odd little voice chimed, “Can you draw a sheep?”

Surprised, the pilot turned to see a small  person standing before him. The little prince  

was petite, with bright blonde hair and curious  eyes. At first, the pilot was uneasy about seeing  

such a young man in the desert. He knew that he  would have to feed the child, care for the child,  

and help the child find his way home. Although,  there was something very strange about him.

The little prince didn’t have a  look of fear on his face at all.  

He didn’t appear to be a boy concerned  about being lost in the desert.  

The pilot told the little prince that he couldn’t  draw a sheep, but he could draw something else.

With a smile beneath the searing desert  sun, the pilot drew his Drawing Number One  

for the little prince. The little prince took  the picture in his tiny hands and exclaimed: “No,  

I don’t want an elephant inside a boa constrictor!  They are too dangerous and big; I need a sheep.”

The pilot drew the little prince  sheep after sheep after sheep,  

but the little prince rejected each drawing,  saying it wasn’t the sheep he was looking for.  

Finally, running out of patience  the pilot drew a picture of a box.  

With a smile he handed the drawing  to the little prince, telling  

him that the box contained the  exact sheep that he was looking for.

The little prince hugged the picture, overjoyed.  It was exactly what he had been hoping for.  

He wondered aloud if the sheep would have  enough grass to eat in his box. After all,  

the box the sheep was living in was quite small.

But the pilot was much less concerned about  the imaginary sheep in the imaginary box.  

He tried to ask the little  prince where he came from.  

But the prince wasn’t interested in answering  questions… he was only interested in asking them.

The little prince inspected the  plane with childlike wonder,  

poking and prodding the metal pieces with a look  of awe sparkling in his eyes. He asked the pilot  

what the purpose of the plane was. “It allows  me to fly through the sky,” the pilot responded.

A warm, comforted smile washed over the little  prince’s face. He was relieved to hear that he  

too came from the sky. He asked what planet  he was from, much to the pilot’s surprise.  

In turn, the pilot posed the same question  to the little prince, wondering if  

that would explain his presence in the desert.

But strangely, the little prince didn’t  answer. Instead, he admired his drawing  

with a smile on his face, thanking the pilot  once more for drawing him such a wonderful sheep.  

“Do you want me to draw a post and a rope  to the sheep so he doesn’t get lost?”  

the pilot asked. But the  little prince just chuckled,  

telling him that his planet was so small that  there was no way the sheep could get lost.

That was the pilot’s first clue about where  this strange little boy had come from.  

After looking at some astronomy maps, he  determined that the boy was from Asteroid B-612,  

a tiny asteroid that was  discovered way back in 1909.

But… that is only a detail  that matters to grown-ups.  

Because the pilot knew that grown-ups  can only understand facts and figures.  

They don’t care about true and real qualities  in things. They measure the beauty of things  

based on their age or their price  — everything else is lost to them.  

They don’t see a sheep in a box on a tiny  planet… they see a square on a piece of paper,  

searing under the sun of the Sahara Desert.

The next few days proved to be some of  the most interesting of the pilot’s life.  

The little prince and the pilot  spent all their time together,  

working on the plane and walking through the  sand nearby. With each sunset they watched,  

and each sunrise that awakened them,  they grew closer and closer together,  

and the pilot found out more and more about  where this strange little boy came from.

On the third day of their encounter, the  little prince explained why he wanted the sheep  

in the first place. He wanted the sheep to eat the  baobab seedlings that are sprouting on his planet.  

Baobabs are gigantic, beautiful trees, with strong  roots that weave their way through the soil.  

They are majestic, with tall, lofty branches and  leaves that cast shade across big swaths of land.  

But there was a problem with the baobab trees.

They could split the prince’s planet into  tiny pieces with their powerful roots,  

and it was the prince’s job to make sure that  didn’t happen. He explained that all planets  

have good plants and bad plants, and it’s  important for people to remain vigilant  

and take care of bad plants as soon as they  begin to grow, to avoid future disasters.

The pilot couldn’t help but notice how much  insight the prince possessed about the world  

thanks to those powerful, beautiful baobab trees.

As they discussed the baobab trees, the  two sat down in the sand to watch the sun  

make its way down over the horizon. The little  prince was mesmerized by the colors before them.  

The way the sunset painted the  sky a beautiful mosaic of pinks,  

reds, oranges and purples - making the horizon and  the sand dunes around them come alive with color.  

In a tiny voice, he told the pilot that  on his planet, you could see the sunset  

whenever you want by simply moving a few feet.  One day, he saw the sunset forty-four times.

Only then did the pilot realize how incredibly  small the little prince’s planet truly was.

As the sun finally swept over the horizon  on that day, the pilot found himself  

watching as the little  prince drifted off to sleep.  

He seemed so small in this vast, endless  desert. He couldn’t imagine the young boy  

with such a vivid imagination, this young boy who  felt things so deeply… being here all by himself.