{"id":540,"date":"2009-06-19T16:41:16","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T16:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html"},"modified":"2009-06-19T16:41:16","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T16:41:16","slug":"the-best-job-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"The Best Job Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wade_Davis\">Wade Davis<\/a> has the coolest job title&#8211;and job&#8211;ever: Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic. He just gave a talk here at the<a href=\"http:\/\/search.blog.beliefnet.com\/cgi-bin\/mt\/mt-search.cgi?search=lohas&amp;IncludeBlogs=136&amp;Go.x=0&amp;Go.y=0\"> LOHAS conference<\/a> about all the many indigenous cultures he has studied, lived with, and loves. He talked of their spiritual connections and obligations, their relationships with plant medicine, and more&#8211;without treacly romanticizing. And I paraphrase: &#8220;Shirley MacLaine has given us the idea that shamans are these nice men with bells and feathers, but I&#8217;ve never bet a shaman who wasn&#8217;t a little bit of a psycho. Which is necessary because it&#8217;s his job to, as Joesph Campbell said, &#8216;navigate the waters most of us would drown in.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He also told the story of a woman in South America asking him for a cigarette and how she immediately disassembled it and went hut-to-hut with the pieces, equally distributing each bit of tobacco because her social &#8220;obligation to share.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sad, moving, inspiring, tear-inducing, and literally chill-giving, he got a long standing ovation. I wish I could show you the talk he gave today, but in lieu, here is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html\">Wade Davis&#8217; TED talk<\/a>, which I&#8217;m told is also pretty freaking inspiring.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<object height=\"326\" width=\"446\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"bgColor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/embed\/WadeDavis_2003-embed_high.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/WadeDavis-2003.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=69\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf\" pluginspace=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" flashvars=\"vu=http:\/\/video.ted.com\/talks\/embed\/WadeDavis_2003-embed_high.flv&amp;su=http:\/\/images.ted.com\/images\/ted\/tedindex\/embed-posters\/WadeDavis-2003.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=69\" height=\"326\" width=\"446\"><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wade Davis has the coolest job title&#8211;and job&#8211;ever: Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic. He just gave a talk here at the LOHAS conference about all the many indigenous cultures he has studied, lived with, and loves. He talked of their spiritual connections and obligations, their relationships with plant medicine, and more&#8211;without treacly romanticizing. And I paraphrase:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,27,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-eco","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Best Job Ever - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Job Ever - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wade Davis has the coolest job title&#8211;and job&#8211;ever: Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic. He just gave a talk here at the LOHAS conference about all the many indigenous cultures he has studied, lived with, and loves. He talked of their spiritual connections and obligations, their relationships with plant medicine, and more&#8211;without treacly romanticizing. And I paraphrase:&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-19T16:41:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vreiss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Best Job Ever - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Best Job Ever - Fresh Living","og_description":"Wade Davis has the coolest job title&#8211;and job&#8211;ever: Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic. He just gave a talk here at the LOHAS conference about all the many indigenous cultures he has studied, lived with, and loves. He talked of their spiritual connections and obligations, their relationships with plant medicine, and more&#8211;without treacly romanticizing. And I paraphrase:&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-06-19T16:41:16+00:00","author":"vreiss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html","name":"The Best Job Ever - Fresh Living","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-19T16:41:16+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-19T16:41:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/06\/the-best-job-ever.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Best Job Ever"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/","name":"Fresh Living","description":"Holistic, Health and Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d","name":"vreiss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","caption":"vreiss"},"description":"Valerie Reiss is Holistic Living Editor at Beliefnet. She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}