Awake!

I will for now, simply ignore the problems I am having dwarfs and continue discussing the creation of Narnia. 

Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak.

Aslan’s first words are a three-time repetition of the name of land (or maybe the name of the world), followed by four commands: awake, love, think, and speak.

In the biblical creation story (Genesis 1) God creates via speech. In this way he names and defines all things. Aslan, however, has not to this point spoken. Thus, Aslan first calls out “Narnia” (three times). Doing so unifies creation under a single name and presumably not just the Talking Beasts but also to the land and water of Narnia.

Aslan’s first command is “Awake!” This seems rather unnecessary as Aslan has already spent quite a bit of time fashioning and then providing sentience to the beasts. Nonetheless, it serves to awaken to Nature that surrounds them. And indeed, at Aslan’s command, Nature produces its own sentient manifestations: dwarfs, fauns, dryads, and river-gods. These creatures can work and live together (like Trufflehunter and Trumpkin) as long as the Narnian’s are one with their woodland environment. Cutting down trees will (and does) lead to the death of Narnia.

I haven’t read this book on Lewis’ approach to environmentalism, but this seems like pretty good support to me.