Ru Biener
SMALL TOWN GIRL

"I was working for my dad's
business on Long Island, and
I just realized 'I'm done,
I need a change'"

by Jen Cowan

Most locals have probably encountered Ru Biener's familiar face. Since her induction to town in 1988, she's done “a little of everything.” This includes being a former president of the Telluride Jewish Community, working for nearly every festival, picture framing, bookkeeping, babysitting and running around in the muck while irrigating. The move to Telluride was inspired by a visit to her brother, who lives here. “I was working for my Dad's auto business on Long Island, and I just realized ‘I'm done. I need a change,’”she says.

Currently, bookkeeping pays the bills, but her work as a shamanic healer keeps her stimulated. Ten years of shamanic study incorporates her belief that the spirit is our father and the earth is our mother and nothing on the planet is any more or less important than any living thing. Shamanic healing involves energy and a hands-on aspect that may include crystals, stones or feathers. Physical and emotional ailments may be helped in these ways. “The whole thing behind shamanism is to keep your four bodies—the mind, the spirit, the physical and the emotional—in harmony. That's when you feel very good,” Ru explains. When one part of those bodies is out of whack, a person's whole well-being may be affected.

Deer skin crafts keep Biener creatively fulfilled. Most of her work is custom-made. Her bags, vests and clothing have been seen at many auctions and on the runway of the Telluride AIDS Benefit fashion show.

To be fair, sometimes Biener asks herself what she's still doing here. Then she finds some new, amazing opportunity. Last summer, she irrigated the West Meadows in Mountain Village. She ran up a hill with a shovel and built small dams. There, a newborn elk, hours old, lay alone in a ditch. She crept up to it and had an up close moment. “I'm grateful for that opportunity,” she says.

Further, Biener coordinated the fashions for this spring's AIDS benefit show? Whew! Despite an attraction to travel and itch to swim with dolphins, Biener appreciates the chances that pop up in her own neighborhood. “Most of the people I know back home have stayed in the same industry. Living in Telluride has presented opportunities to try new things and really be a part of the community.”

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