“It’s not only my body that is dying. Think about so many other bodies—of people and places—you know it's a time of dying. As Vanessa Machado de Oliveira says, it’s a time of ‘hospicing modernity.’ Hospice like I'm giving someone a soft transition out of life. I believe it is our collective work to usher out this worldview of power-over, and bring in something more beautiful.”- Hanna du Plessis
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Hanna is our first featured voice...
…and she is dying of ALS.
Through her teaching, coaching, group hosting, writing, art, loving acts and lived example, Hanna has touched thousands of people. She’s a leader in showing what’s needed for us to create together a world where all belong. We are so excited to bring her voice to you.
A message from Hanna recorded in April 2023, a few months after her diagnosis
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Hanna's story
Hanna’s career has revolved around an urgent sense of possibility—that we can become more able to co-create the thriving world we can dream of.
Beginnings in South Africa
Hanna grew up in apartheid South Africa, with a clear social caste system that still reverberates in inequitable practices that harm everyone. Living there, she witnessed how patterns of oppression perpetuate in our own bodies and in the social fabric, one generation after another.
Moving from design to social transformation
Around 2010, Hanna left the world of design and strategy to learn about social transformation. She embarked on a different mission: to transform herself and share what she learned with others, “so we can get good at the collective work of healing, repairing, and re-weaving.”
Hanna has co-hosted dozens of spaces of transformation—gatherings of change leaders, student cohorts, entire organizations. She has been an artist, a dancer, a writer, and performed improv on stage.
Hanna’s persistent driving question throughout these years has been:
“Seeing that the world is a living system, that we are all participants in its emergent complexity, and that oppression and trauma are embedded in our society, how do we create together toward an equitable and sustainable future?”
Living, dying and writing with ALS
In March of 2023, Hanna was diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative neuromuscular disease that slowly robs the body of its functions. She has committed this time to writing, and we are thrilled to have some of her work in development.
Learn more, learn how to help
Hanna’s community of care has a home at okaythen.net/hanna. You can see some of her past writings, follow her story through updates, and see ways we can all support her through this time.
Some past works
Hanna speaks at TEDx Pittsburgh
The desegregation of self
Toward ending white silence
Current and forthcoming work by Hanna
Bedsores and Bliss
Finding fullness of life with a terminal diagnosis—a pocketbook containing a remarkable collection of essays written as Hanna experienced her diagnosis and life with ALS.
Coming Winter 2024
Two more books from Hanna coming in late 2024 and early 2024—a collage of memoir and essays, and the full collection of her ALS writings.
Boppa’s Bald Stories
A children’s book featuring Hanna’s beautiful and whimsical illustrations. NOW AVAILABLE!