The Circle of Life: A Guide for Conscious Living in a World of Chaos

Awareness of the natural progression of life transforms chaos and crisis into opportunities for knowledge and personal growth. With insight and humor, Frank Natale shares his wisdom on the thirteen inevitable rites of passage and how The Circle of Life illuminates our path of spiritual development through four phases: Preparation, Initiation, Integration and Realization.

“Transformation is the essence of being alive,” Natale writes. “These passages are the doorways to our power and spiritual evolution. The passages within the Circle of Life are so powerful that knowing what they are and when they will come is not enough to avoid them. The only possibility we have is to accept and extract value from them while consciously experiencing them.”

A native New Yorker, in 1967 Natale co-founded Phoenix House in New York, which became the largest residential treatment facility for chemical dependency in the United States. After twelve years as clinical director, Natale left to focus on successful, functioning personalities who want to experience new levels of creativity and aliveness. Working throughout the United States, Europe and Australia, Natale’s teaching emphasized self-discovery, personal responsibility and choice as paths to conscious living and spiritual growth.

A teacher and author, Frank Natale was founder and creative director of The Natale Institute and Frank Natale & Associates, experiential education organizations presenting seminars and programs throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Natale's teaching emphasized self-discovery, personal responsibility and choice as paths to conscious living and spiritual growth. Experiential seminars created by Frank Natale include Trance Dance, the dance of life; Rites of Passage, exploring life's inevitable transformations; The One Experience; Alive Relationships; Results, a course in creative consciousness; Creative Communications, the experience of being understood; and Self Esteem, the power within. Committed to dance as a healing force, Natale, with his band Professor Trance, produced a body of music featuring extended play tracks including the albums Shaman's Breath, Medicine Trance, Rites of Passage, Dance Your Animal, Dancers of Eternity, Spirit Animal and Breath of Fire. Books by Frank Natale include The Circle of Life; Relationships for Life; Results: The Willingness to Create; The Wisdom of Midlife; and Trance Dance, the Dance of Life. A native New Yorker, in 1967 Natale co-founded Phoenix House in New York, which became the largest residential treatment facility for chemical dependency in the United States. After serving as clinical director for twelve years, Natale chose to leave Phoenix House and focus his work on successful, functioning personalities who want to experience new levels of spirituality, creativity and aliveness. During the Sixties and Seventies Natale studied and worked with many leaders of the modern human consciousness movement including Charles Dederich, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Baba Muktananda, J. Krishnamurti and Buckminster Fuller. Natale passed in June, 2002 in Hawaii surrounded by family and friends.