Strings of Light

By Fran Williams

Harpist Eily Aurora, also known as The Harp Faery, brings healing through music and whimsy.

Eily Aurora lifts her hands to her harp and lets her fingers dance across its strings. The melody flows effortlessly with a delicate, powerful and ethereal cascade of notes that seem to float through the air like ripples on water. There is something raw and unfiltered about this real-life fairy. She is a complex mix of performance and heart; nothing about her feels hidden or pretend, even through the grandeur of her costume and makeup.

She reminds me of a flower, just trying to grow. Aurora is a powerful musician, dressed in flowing fabrics with delicate wings on her back. She is known as The Harp Faery, a part of her that she has embraced and grown over years of her artistic journey.

“My mission is to awaken and ignite people’s playful inner nature.”Eily Aurora

Aurora’s journey with the harp began at home, with her mother, who first picked up the instrument while recovering from a broken hip. One day, Aurora, intrigued, asked her mom for a lesson, and her love affair and journey with the harp was set in motion.

“The day that I asked her to teach me was a really magical day.”

Eily Aurora

“I remember in the kitchen at the old house they used to live at, and she was just near the harp, and I said, well, teach me something.” Her mother agreed, . “She left that day. She’s like, don’t play anymore. I want to teach you properly. But of course, I sat down and I learned it. And when she got home, I almost knew how to play the song.”

The Birth of the Harp Faery

Aurora’s journey to embodying the Harp Fairy was gradual, unfolding through intuition and a deep connection with nature. “The fairy took some time for me to accept. It came in slowly, in different ways.”

She describes feeling an affinity for trees, the sky, and the elements since childhood. “The fairy energy is this authentic expression of who I am. It is that essence within me that’s beyond conditioning… It’s free, it can float in the sky, it can move freely.”

She first stepped into her fairy truth in Boulder, Colorado, where she hesitantly dressed up and performed on Pearl Street, a hub for street performers. “It’s really facing resistance. It’s like, okay, okay, I’m doing this, but as soon as I’m in it… as her, there’s an incredible sense of comfort. Like, this is more of who I am, that I’m getting to be.”

A Harp as a Weapon of Love

She envisions The Harp Faery as a warrior of love and playfulness with sound as her weapon. “The harp fairy gets her harp in front of her, she pulls out her hand, she strums her harp, and the vibrations hit them and they go, oh, oh, what am I doing? They wake up from their confusion and they remember who they are.”

Aurora finds a sense of play working with children during the week and is working on starting a fairy school to offer to children in Calgary. Aurora plays concerts with fellow artists, performs at events, such as weddings and retreats. She spreads her joy, sense of play and awe wherever she is called to be.

Aurora talks of a strong calling to play for those in grief. Aurora says that there is something about the sound of the harp, she says, that allows emotion to surface, to flow. She has witnessed the way sound can unlock something deep inside people, how the vibrations from her strings can soften moments of suffering. She recalls one of her most profound moments: playing in response to a friend lost to cancer, “it was when I got home that this energy started flowing through my body, from my head into my hands … this melody came to me through my hands into the harp. And it was a moment of, like, channelling, you could call it, or just opening to a greater power.”

Aurora now shares her melodies with others in hopes of providing a moment of comfort and healing to those who hear the healing notes of her strings.

Dreams of a Bigger Stage

Aurora dreams of expanding the Harp Fairy’s presence.

“One of the gifts the harp gives me is it shifts my brain waves into the creative.”Eily Aurora

She envisions playing on a cloud, atop a roaring waterfall, sending melodies into the rushing water to flow out into the world’s waterways. Aurora dreams of bringing the Harp Fairy to life through art, film, and story. “The visions I have as the harp fairy and as an artist are so much bigger than just me. Like, it really needs a team of people to work together.”

A Magical Transformation

For Aurora, stepping into the Harp Fairy’s persona is a transformation. “Every time I take the makeup off, take the wig off, take the clothes off, I am more me. It’s like the cells of this body have vibrated more to that truth, and I’m now more that.” Says Aurora, “and more and more opportunities have come because as we embody our truth, the world, life, sees us as that truth.”

In every pluck of a string, in every note that floats into the air, she hopes to remind people of something they may have forgotten. “It unlocks something in people’s hearts, in people’s souls that reminds them of why we’re here … Is innovative, is creative and can see beyond the system, the struggles of the systems we’re in.”

A Doorway Between Worlds

The harp has been a guide, a best friend, an anchor between worlds. It has carried her onto stages, through grief, and into landscapes where strangers mistook her for something otherworldly.

In Vancouver, on a whim, she cycled through the island, gathering flowers, creating a wreath for her head. This led her to a spontaneous photo shoot, with a photographer who quipped that, for a moment, he thought he had seen a real fairy.

“I said, I am a real fairy.”

This encounter allowed her to expand her art. She has created cards, adorned with poetry and images of her as the Harp Faery. They travel to new homes like talismans, little reminders of a world just beyond the veil. A place that is close if we only choose to believe we are all free to experience it too.

“I know they’ve gone to Ireland and gone to different places in the world.”Eily Aurora

The Harp Faery’s story is still unfolding. There are other characters she is working on —Klesha, the shadow side of the fairy and The Star Dragon – a real-life dragon that currently appears in the world as a hand puppet. It is a whole universe that paints a tale of harmony and discord, of reconciling light and dark. Eily creates rich worlds filled with intricate backgrounds for her personas.“It’s about including all parts of ourselves on the journey and accepting those parts,” she says.

And so, with every strum and every winged step, she invites others to join her and step out of their doubts and into freedom. To attune to their higher self in play. To remember who they are and experience life in a way that bypasses the drudgery that often infiltrates us. To connect to the intuition of their souls and their divine nature.