Folks We Love with Angie Banicki, tarot card reader
Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you've come to arrive here.
My journey began in small town Illinois and took me to Chicago then Los Angeles. I lured my partner Mark here from Chicago as well. We went to Northwestern together and reconnected 14 years later when my friend Ximena hired me to read tarot cards at her wedding in Chicago just a few years ago. And now here we all are living in Laurel Canyon - Mark, me, our 7 month old daughter Charlotte, and our 7 year old dog Bettywhite!
Who's in your family? Ages? Names?
Me Mark and Charlotte. Charlotte is 7 months old!
How did you choose your kids names?
Charlotte James Bybee - Charlotte was my great grandmother’s name. (I never met her but apparently she used to have tarot cards and would have dreams that came true) James is Mark’s middle name and my grandfather’s name.
Location?
Laurel Canyon CA
Occupation?
Tarot Card Reader - Explorer of the Soul
What's on your manifest board?
Travel to new places, spiritual growth and lots of blank space -(an openness to what is meant to come for us!)
Tell us some of your most loved ways to spend the day with your clan?
Taking trips together to explore new places and new people and on the flip side just spending lazy sundays giggling and hanging out without any sort of agenda at all.
What are some silly/fun things that the kids do or say?
Charlotte has hit that stage where she has discovered she can make noises with her mouth. It’s the most amazing thing to watch when she decides to pull it out. Right as she is being put to bed, she’ll just whip out her tongue while sporting a big grin and just slightly push air out. It’s subtle while being enormously hilarious at the same time. And she knows she gets attention with it!
When you were a teenager what did you dream of? Do things look different?
Even as a teenager, I didn’t have a clear picture of what I would be doing. I always knew I loved being around and helping people. But again I suppose I was always just OPEN to how that might look in a career sense. But I did see California! And I definitely never in a million years saw tarot card reader. I didn’t even believe in anything of the sort in my formative years!
What are some things you really believe in?
The biggest thing I believe is that there is SO MUCH we don’t know and will probably never truly understand in this lifetime. And that is exciting to me - and probably a big reason I do what I do. Because I want to try and delve deeper into that unknown - if not to understand it, to get every bit of knowledge of it that I can!
Where do your passions lie?
Hiking, traveling and reading!
Has your relationship with your other half changed since having kids?
um 100%! Our beautiful baby was a surprise! And she was the surprise that pressed fast forward on our relationship. We went from reconnected friends, to long distance love, to baby/move/livetogether partners all at once. I suppose a lot of people say having a baby is hardest on your relationship and I think for us it was that and yet also this beautiful gift that brought us together. She was the secret sauce that made us work!
What are some of your favorite life lessons you've grown to love? (even if learning them at the time was hard)
I love love love my independence and a lot of my lessons come from being in a relationship. I constantly want to run or jump on a plane to escape reality and now having Mark and Charlotte, I don’t have that luxury. But that luxury was my downfall. I was stunting my own growth. And now when I think I can do it all on my own, I’ve learned to lean on my family and that feels so wonderful! And so much easier than running!
What do you wish you could've told yourself when you were a teenager?
Stop making things harder than they need to be! Just be you and show up!
What do you find most challenging about being somebody's parent?
I actually love ALL the new challenges of parenting. I was ready for new life challenges by the time Charlotte got here - I was 38! I would say, because this happened to me this weekend - being sick and being a mom is NOT EASY! I hated that I couldn’t rock her standing up too long because I almost fainted. It’s the worst feeling when you cannot give your everything to your child when you feel they need you!
What do you want your kids to learn about the world?
I want her to soak up EVERYTHING! I want her to meet all different kinds of people and feel new kinds of compassion and love with each interaction! I am so excited to be a witness to that.
What are 4 things you can't live without as a parent?
Our dog Bettywhite who is like the big kid sister who wants to help with the baby, the Ergobaby 360 which allows me to be social and run around town with charlotte, Camilia homeopathic drops for teething, and as crazy as this sounds NATURE or more specifically the trees (when Charlotte is losing it crying the one thing that ALWAYS makes her stop is if I walk outside and have her say hi to the trees)
Contributed by Brooke Stone