Independently Published in November 2025

For Groups and individuals

OK Doomer

Climate events are shocking many of us with their ferocity, speed, and extremes. OK Doomer reflects a personal journey through the emotional aftermath, whilst growing a deeper understanding of my overwhelm and ecological sorrow, ultimately enabling my participation in life again.

Categorized, ridiculed and too often dismissed as ‘doomerism’, the research is emerging on the emotional responses to climate events; climate overwhelm is real, cumulative, and potentially devastating. Left unacknowledged or ignored, it can lead to numbing and/or a sense of dread of the future, both a shutting down from life.

Evidence-informed and filtered through the experience of extreme climate events, OK Doomer includes 35 both contemplative and expressive ideas for groups and individuals, with reflective prompts for sharing and or journaling. Compiled from some of the world’s leading researchers and practitioners on the human response to climate change. 

A poetry section is included, with guidance and ideas for working with poems and the complexities of climate overwhelm. 

Below is a sample activation from the book:

1.  Uluru – Solid Rock – Sacred Ground

THEME : looking at your current distress from different time perspectives

During the repeating floods that came with a 3 year La Niñna in Australia, needing to dry out my soggy core, I escaped to the desert.  I had to get away from the endless mud that would not dry and the mold that moved in with the oppressive moisture. The sound of the rain had become triggering. I fled to a big dry Uluru, often called The Centre. The band Goanna sang of this rock and solid and sacred. I relished the dry air and hot sand.   I sat at the sunset viewing spot with the buses and cars and made sand-spirals.   Sandart was my way of dancing with this ancient, mysterious rock, at the center of the country I was born in. A way of opening and listening to the ways of ancient timelessness.  The spirals became a petition to something larger than me, that had survived much harsher climates and stood resolute for eons. 

Suggested Locations & Materials needed:

Sand for drawing in ideally working at a beach or riverside.  You can also use a sandpit, or have sand in trays (you can buy bags of sand at hardware retailers and landscape supplies)

Alternatively, making spirals on sheets of butcher’s paper with crayons or coloured pencils or stubs of charcoal.  This can work indoors if the weather is not conducive to working outdoors.

Reflect/Activate

Contemplate desert places in the world, and why they are chosen by ascetics and popular destinations. Is there a place where you go to locate your inner strength?

Draw or make spirals with your fingers in some sand if you have access to it. You can do this activity at the beach or on a sandy riverbank or the nearest kids’ sandpit.   Listen to the voice of the sand, which has broken down from mountains for millions of years.  What would the sands of time say to you from its perspective on time? (Joanna Macy calls this Deep Time.)

Take the time to feel the sand in your fingers – its age and its voice. As you create spirals, can you become aware of two-way spiraling out and in at the same time? Contemplate this 2 way action while tracing your spirals with your hands, for a while. Share or journal about 2-way spiraling in and out simultaneously.

This work is a simple but remarkably powerful tool kit, which supports transcendence of Doomer nihilism and despair…  it is a gutsy, honest, vibrant and ultimately optimistic piece of work, inspiring inner and outer action on both a personal and planetary level. May the influence of OK Doomer spread rapidly through space and time, gathering momentum as it travels the road into the future of our peoples and the planet we call home.

Alasdair Taylor

PRANA Ecotherapy