It is with profound sadness that I share that my beloved sister, Alena Hennessy, passed away at Emberlight Center for Conscious Living and Dying on September 5, 2026, after a brief and devastating journey with ovarian cancer.
 

Many of you may have already heard this news through Alena’s Instagram or Facebook pages. But I know that some of you connect with her primarily through these letters, her courses, and the beautiful creative world she built. It felt important to reach you here, too.

Alena was surrounded by deep love and extraordinary care in the final chapter of her life through the incredible services that Emberlight offers. She was held by family, friends, and the community she cultivated so beautifully.
 

Even as her body was letting go, her spirit remained unmistakably Alena: creative, mystical, tender, complicated, luminous, and entirely her own.

 

My name is Dyana Hennessy Soul, and I am Alena’s sister.

 

Alena trusted me to continue her life’s work without a second’s hesitation. She told some of her closest friends that she believed I would do great things with her business.

 

Shortly before she passed, she called me a total badass.

 

It was pure Alena: loving, fierce, direct, and absolutely certain.

 

I understand the importance of the faith she placed in me. Her trust is something I will carry with me forever. It is the honor of my life to carry her work forward, to protect what she created, and to help it continue inspiring beauty and creativity throughout the world.

 

Imagining together what could become of her work and her business was one of our great joys in her final days. Alena loved using her business brain, and I loved learning from her and dreaming alongside her.

 

That said, there was much we did not have time to discuss. More pressing things called for our attention: her spiritual journey, the love surrounding her, the brutal reality of her failing body and the profound work of helping all of us come to terms with the suddenness of her illness and the painfully short time we had together.

 

Even in dying, Alena continued to offer something extraordinary to those around her. Her longtime mentor described it as her final art project. She approached the end of her life with intention and allowed those who loved her to witness something raw, sacred, and transformative.

 

In time, I will share more about her journey, her art, and the extraordinary body of work she left behind.

WHERE THE Love of BEAUTY BEGAN

After Alena passed, I drove across the country with our mother, Jane, and Alena's dogs, Leo and Lilly.

 

Throughout the journey, Mom noticed beauty everywhere! Mountains. Clouds. Trees. Light across the landscape. A bird outside the window. Every few minutes, she found something wondrous and called my attention to it.

 

As I watched her, something I had known since childhood became newly visible to me.

 

Our mother taught us to notice beauty and to ground ourselves in gratitude. She taught us that beauty was everywhere, that it mattered, and that it was worth stopping to see. That gratitude changes the way we see the world, allowing kindness and beauty to flourish.

 

That way of looking at the world has shaped who I am, just as it shaped Alena.

 

Alena took that shared inheritance and transformed it into paintings, teachings, gatherings, and invitations for thousands of people to see more deeply and create more freely.

 

I am now stepping more fully into that heritage with profound gratitude, deep humility, and a clear understanding of the magnitude of what lies ahead.

 

I cannot fill Alena’s shoes, and I am not meant to. I will find my own way forward while carrying what she entrusted to me. The responsibility is immense, but I believe I will rise to meet it, just as my big sister believed I would. 

 

My hope is not simply to preserve Alena’s work, but to help it continue traveling through the world.

 

I want new people to encounter her art and longtime students to remain connected to it. I dream of exhibitions that bring her paintings together, of her work being seen in galleries and museums, and creating new opportunities for people to gather in the spirit of beauty, creativity, and connection that she inspired.

I am still finding my own voice within this work, and I trust it will emerge in its own time. I feel as though I am stepping into the mist, unable to see the whole path but trusting that each step will reveal the next. I believe Alena will be there in the light, guiding me forward. I ask for your grace as I listen, learn, and follow where the path leads.

with gratitude to Emberlight
a center for conscious living and dying

Emberlight provides its extraordinary care completely free of charge and is sustained entirely by donations. The medical bills from Alena's brief hospital stay exceeded $75,000, of which insurance covered approximately $15,000.   Emberlight then cared for her around the clock for two months at no cost to our family, allowing us to focus on loving Alena and simply being her family.

 

In keeping with Alena’s wishes, Alena Hennessy Studios will make sustainable, ongoing contributions to Emberlight as the business moves forward. If you feel moved to help make this extraordinary care possible for other families, I invite you to make a direct donation.