Meet Bridget
A Winter Solstice daughter, the quiet flame who holds light and dark.
I'm Bridget Mitchell. I blend teas, write, and keep a tea table in Philadelphia for anyone moving through matters of the heart.
Where I come from
I've spent my life sitting with people in their hardest seasons.
Before I ever steeped a cup for anyone, I was a social worker. I sat with children and adults in mental health work, with families in hospice, and with children at CHOP who were carrying both medical and emotional weight. That is where I learned to be someone safe to bring grief to.
Chinese medicine came next, and with it, the seasons. Autumn belongs to the Lung, and its emotion is grief. Spring belongs to the Liver, to growth and beginning again. Everything I make follows that turning.
I was adopted, and for most of my life I grew up without roots. Not knowing where I came from left its mark on me, emotionally and spiritually, and for years I searched outside myself for a sense of who I was. At fifty, I found my biological family. Knowing the story of my origin helped heal my younger self and gave me a deep sense of wellbeing. Today I stand strong inside myself, with a story that is woven into my own awakening.
My training
I hold a master's degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. This book walks alongside your care. I've been guiding people on their spiritual journeys since 2007.
The name
Why The Gilded Leaf
A leaf is the humblest thing in the garden. It doesn't ask to be noticed. It simply turns toward the light, holds it, and gives it back as something we can live on. Drop one into hot water and wait, and you watch it happen: the water slowly turns gold.
That is the whole of it for me. Gilded, because I believe the ordinary is already precious if we slow down long enough to see it. Leaf, because healing rarely arrives in grand gestures. It comes the way a steep does, quietly, a little at a time, one cup at a time.
For years I searched outside myself for what was already rooted within. The Gilded Leaf is what grew when I finally sat still at my own table and let the plants teach me. This is where I pour what I've learned, for anyone moving through matters of the heart.
Pull up a chair
Start with the free Seasons of the Heart gift, or come sit with me in the spring circle.
Press and podcast invitations: thegildedleafteas@gmail.com