Johnny posts a picture of a room built from the very land it sits on, with twelve seats at a candlelit table. Through this image, I am transported back to the /shed recoleccion (dinner), where connections were nourished, and I could imagine a return to the most essential parts of my community, myself, and eternal time. /shed is more than a dinner, it is an offering to forge our ways back to our own source.
To understand eternal time is to recognize our relational position within the infinite. /shed creates a critical moment to experience this connection through the ceremony of sharing a meal.
Dinner began with a simple yet profound action: Taos spring water. Without water, we cannot exist. By presenting this, /shed opens the threshold, giving the space its own life for the night. This is intentional, as Johnny and Maida express that each dinner is created and dismantled, allowing us to naturally become part of the cycle that is revered within the /shed ecosystem. Taking a seat at this table, I found myself wanting to honor every lifecycle that contributed to this dinner. As I was taught in my own Pueblo, I quietly offered a prayer of gratitude as Johnny introduced the first dish: smoked trout with chokecherry-dusted watercress, served on lava rock along with a glass of “perennial”, by Hiyu.
Our local environments truly have everything we need; we have to tend to them to see that. For example, lava rock is abundant in New Mexico and has been used to build our Pueblo hornos for centuries. I had never once thought of it as a vessel to serve food until that moment. The power of /shed lies in its ability to cultivate a space to witness, to practice, to return, and to create.
It has been months since I attended the /shed dinner, yet every detail of the experience hums in my memory, inspiring new thoughts and actions. I reflect on its connection to my work in restoring balance to our local and global ecosystems, and am comforted by how much of the practice aligns with my own community’s ancestral teachings. I feel fortunate to be part of the parciante membership, witnessing the alchemy of /shed extend into projects like Juliette and siempre* design, and I eagerly await the beginning of the next cycle.
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Danielle Lucero (Pueblo of Isleta/Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) was raised in the Pueblo of Isleta and currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner. In her work, she supports local and global initiatives that are deeply responsive to community needs, advance food sovereignty, protect water resources, and strengthen health systems. You can learn about some of the work she contributes to at restorebalance.world.