Long years ago, I encountered a prayer attributed to Rumi, “Shatter my heart to make room for an infinite love.” I remember being struck and deeply moved by it, seeing the image as poetic and such an expression of surrender. I was doing a lot of public speaking at the time, and spoke of it in a variety of ways. A friend had a calligraphy artist make a gorgeous piece inscribing the words and framed it for me.

Soon after, the universe took me up on my request; shattering after shattering of my heart ensued. The fact that I had loved the prayer and that my friend had commissioned the beautiful art piece as a gift helped me to maintain a certain focus and committment through the shatterings.

Making room for infinite love is not light work. And surely it is a life’s work. But the traumas that pierce the heart are seen in a different light as the purity of love that vibrates in all things unconfined by time/space continuums is felt. Then the shatterings make sense.

This love is always there, is in every atom and cell of creation, but apparently is sensed more fully as the heart undergoes initiations. If these are happening to you, to a friend or a loved one, trust the process. Let’s all encourage and remind each other to trust it. The more we make room in the heart, the more such love can infiltrate confined and constricted heart spaces. As Rilke says, “Now, let us go and do heart work.”