Phil Mondragón

PHILIP MONDRAGÓN
Phil was a Grand Maestro, prolific thinker and copious reader. His mentorship resonated with Tao Te Ching. He was a unique individual with timeless perspectives. He had enduring qualities, expanding intuition, understanding and knowledge. Phil’s heritage came as much from the Tao as from his parents, country of origin or his country of residence. He was the essence and continuum of personal growth and wisdom.
Phil was a Chicagoan and long-time resident of Mexico. He was a published author but above all else he was a man whose legacy remains active within the work and commitment of Black Diamond. He once said to Sammy, “Our souls met ages ago.” And now our inspired souls carry forward together. His wisdom and commitment to the Tao transcended his professional and private life, working with political and private sector individuals. Phil carried with him an uncanny capacity to adapt within the Tower of Babel’s, multi-culturalism, and the geo-political forces that enveloped his life through nine decades of successful endeavors.
All roads lead to his presence as a powerful and wise mentor to many within his family and professional community. The disciplined soldier, haunted by loss and abandonment, chose Mexico because of his plight to find identity, the plight that gifted him with strength. Phil later understood that his search for identity was what gave him the power to achieve. The search for his biological father, the ensuing love story with his wife of Spanish descendants and tradition, the halls of the highest levels of politics, the experience of fighting for his country during the Cold War years. His exceptional brilliance and a devout reader – the embodiment of a conceptualist in the best of perspectives.
Bio-Phil
Phil remains a guiding light despite his physical absence. Black Diamond is the ultimate formalized vision of what Phil spent 40 years inspiring through his commitment to better the human condition. A no nonsense man who showed little of his own suffering yet manifested it with his work on earth.
The Tao offered him a world for the ever changing. Verse 58. Living Untroubled by Good and Bad Fortune. In this chapter, Lao Tzu speaks of the impermanence of our surroundings, the unreliability, insecurity and unpredictability all of which are present in every single experience. Unexpected are the norms of nature as they are with our lives.
“Bad Fortune is what good fortune leans on;
good fortune is what bad fortune hides in.
Who knows the ultimate end of this process?”
Twisted Tree
In the magical valley of Frondoso there is a twisted tree that should have fallen long ago. Its roots have been gnawed by animals, its branches axed by men. The gnarled trunk protrudes from the earth at an abrupt angle of 45 degrees and it grows in an outward sweeping arc. The trunk is stripped of bark. Its exposed scars run in long thin lines upward to a point where the trunk, covered by thick bark, straightens and rises vertically. From the vertical rise two large opposing branches emerge, forming the distorted image of a diving rod searching for something in the sky.

 

The distortion caused by the overweighted branch is counterbalanced by a jutting horizontal portion that does not seek the sun but instead grows back toward the weak side of the tree, giving it miraculous balance. The twisted tree in its complexity and apparent impossibility resembles a segment of a dimensioned surrealist painting by Picasso or Dali or Miro.

 

The tree is ugly and it should have died, but it has decided to live and it heals itself. It produces delicate pink blossoms and clusters of rich tasty fruit. If you focus on the tree you will realize that by staying longer in the moment an entire new world appears.
Phil Mondragón 2012