Life is a voyage and we are all voyagers.

Welcome to Emerge Deeper!

I’m Apostolis Kallioras. You can read an interview of mine in travel.gr and get a glimpse of my voyage. It's in Greek. The full thing lies translated further below, though.

…yes, with pictures you curious minds!

But first, tell me…

What is it that you are seeking my fellow little soul? Where is it that you are coming from?

Do you stroll downhill at nights and gaze at the stars? Or is the morning sun the wheel that moves you forward?

Maybe you are uphill on your path. Maybe it's foggy, dark, and cold. Maybe you are faraway from home.

Then again, maybe you are preparing for the next stage, the next summit, the next wave!

Day and night, the voyage is unfolding.

The voyagers don't fret.

Every unfolding is a transition, a transformation, a step closer to their truth.

The voyagers don't fret.

The obstacle is the way.

So dear friend, this space is about the Odyssey of life.

It's about the transformations, the struggles, the defeats, and the victories that everyone undergoes in this great life adventure.

Like Ulysses, we are all longing to return to Ithaca, to return “home”, but it's in the voyage where the meaning of life is hidden.

It's through the voyage that we discover who we are.

Dear friend, I invite you to embrace your Odyssey!

I invite you to trust yourself, trust life, and live in awe!

What is this voyage, if not a series of transitions and transformations?

Every transition is in a sense a quantum leap. A step closer to our essence.

With every transition, we dive deeper in our existence.

The deeper we dive, the more we emerge in a richer more meaningful experience.

And this is how Emerge Deeper came to be.

Welcome voyager,

Come
Sit by the fire
Here we blend all kinds of stories

Past, Present, Future
Intuition is our compass
The Spirits our friends

We live in Awe
We travel to cities and mountains
To the Abyss, the Universe, the Sun

We smell flowers and taste the sea
Sailing away to the worlds
Where the unknown paths feel familiar

You want to know
First, forget

Take the step
Through the flames
Above the smoke
Who you were doesn’t matter

The night is singing on the trees!
Dance with us!

Around and further again
It dawns

Emerge deeper into your human experience

Breathe

Come, wonder, welcome

Who am I and how did I arrive here?

I worked in special divisions of law enforcement, for a decade or so. Then I left the capital and moved to a sparsely populated national park. A place of lakes and mountains, ...and of bears and snow!

What I was actually searching for, was myself, —yeah I know, I'm a cliche.

Some 12 years forward, and several transitions, transformations, and iterations later, I came down from the mountains and back to “civilization”. Now I'm embracing my identity as a writer, an unspoken dream since 4th grade, and also that of a mentor, designer, and leader of authentic real-life transformative experiences.

Among other things, in this space, we will be fostering connection. Connection with ourselves, with other people, with the more-than-human world.

We will be voicing our truths, fears, motivations, limitations and aspirations.

We'll head into darkness and come back alive to celebrate it!

It's in this spirit of trust and vulnerable exposition, that I'm putting out this interview that I mentioned in the beginning. It's in this spirit of facing my fears, that I decided to give this interview in the first place. It might not show, but actually I'm a shy boy.

I'm opening this door and taking the first step, dear friend, to foster this connection with you.

Now, press ▶️ and read on! Thank you for being here!

Apostolis Kallioras: From Policeman in Athens to DJ and Farmer in Prespes

The choice of a police officer to leave his life in the metropolis and live in a more humane place.

The music of Karaindrou accompanies us on the misty, autumnal road through the forest of Mount Vitsi as we head towards Prespa. Young woodcutters load mules and packhorses with wood, creating images of another era.

Apostolis Kallioras waits for us at dawn on the waterfront of Mikri Prespa. We sail in a contemplative silence with the group from the "Flow" photographic and experiential workshop, while he guides the solar-powered boat —without an internal combustion engine— of the Prespa municipality, around the islet of Agios Achilleios with the Basilica, to the bird-inhabited Vidronisi islet and into unknown paradises.

Rare bird species already sing in harmony with the rustling of the wings of the silver pelicans and the geese on the water, while the reeds respond melodically to the caress of the wind. You'd think this morning water concert awakens the sun and raises it. Apostolis's playful smile seems like a continuation of the horizon on the lakes of the Tri-national area. "What brought me here was the saturation from life in the city, the feeling of 'no more' and the pull of nature," he tells us as we enjoy this unique, blessed boat trip, and its echo "sculpts" the water.

We sit in the courtyard of "Liveloula" —meaning dragonfly— the little bar that he dreamed of just last year. At the tables in the plaza of the Prespa village of Lefkonas, we listen to Bryan Ferry's "Kiss and Tell." And our conversation begins.

From being a policeman in the capital, you become a farmer, boatman, entrepreneur, and DJ in Prespa.

"I was born in Athens. I grew up in Lamprini (neighborhood of Athens) until I was ten, when we moved to Trikala, for me and my brother to live and experience our childhood in the village. That's what our parents decided. After high school, I went to the city of Xanthi, where I joined the police academy. I didn't pursue this job as a lifelong dream, but to see the world and experience things. And I did. Being a policeman on the streets is different from, for example, being an architect in an office. Different experiences. I never dreamed of myself in a police uniform. It was circumstances and job security. I was seventeen and a half, with a job, a small salary, a roof over my head, and food. At twenty, while everyone else was studying, I had complete autonomy. My father used to call me and still calls me a "street explorer" because I would explore every unknown alley and door."

Did you watch detective movies?

What the movies show about detectives, I've experienced most of it; within ten years in the basin (Attica’s geophysical basin). Have you heard about the taxi drivers in London, that at some point, their "brain changes" and they acquire "the knowledge" of the city? Well, that's the first thing I gained, the knowledge. The second is the understanding of the psychograph of the Athenian by neighborhood. I know the city, how it breathes, how it sleeps, what concerns it, how it works, and by extension, the Greek people because Greece is not just Athens, but it is. And from what I know, not much has changed since, even though some years have passed. I know the city's tribes in detail, the people of Peristeri, Glyfada, the "center" people. Through interaction with them, I know the hardship of a taxi driver, the hardship of someone working in a company, the X, Y, or Z issue of a public servant. At some point before leaving Athens —which I love; I used to get out of my house on Galatsi hill and while gazing at the view of the basin I was having this sense that I have had at least one coffee with everyone, that my eyes had passed through everyone, even once. That I knew every tile, every alley, and every block of Athens horizontally and vertically, the basements, and the living rooms.

What did you do with fear?

I felt fear since I was young —as everyone. I was just more daring than others. I felt fear and continue to. Whatever I fear, I examine it to understand it more deeply, and take it further to overcome the 'comfort zone'. I am fearless in familiar situations. In the unknown, all possibilities are open.

Did the unknown attract you?

And it still does. I had and still have a curiosity about life and how things work. I am thirsty for knowledge. I was a good policeman, they said. In whatever the job required, I read people, the sidewalk, anticipated what would happen, I was a “cat”. It's a job that is outside the norm of society. On New Year's Eve on duty, I observed. When you observe without judging, then you understand. I was always fascinated by people as well as books. Since the third grade, I've been reading. I've exhausted the lending library of Trikala - both floors - all the classics, Kazantzakis, Kundera, and even Einstein from my father's library.

What do your parents say about you?

"Oh well, from you, I expect anything."

Ten years in special service in Athens, and then? What happened, and why did you move to Prespes?

For the first time, I came on a trip in 2001, on leave from the police, with a friend. We traveled without a destination. Trikala, Grevena, Kozani, from friend to friend. In Kastoria, they told us 'go to Prespes, to so and so.' As soon as I approached Prespa, it enchanted me, I fell in love with it, it clicked, without me knowing what that meant. Perhaps because I grew up with Jules Verne. In this Angelopoulos-like landscape, I reconnected with my childhood experiences from Tzoumerka and Agrafa (mountainous regions in central Greece).

I had a vague dream that I am an old farmer with an estate and horses. When, after nine years, tired of Athens, I asked myself 'where are we going?' he answered 'Prespa.' So, I came.

Is it important for us to be able to listen to ourselves?

“I was a village boy. I kneaded dough with my grandmother, herded sheep with my grandfather in Mirofilo, Trikala, near Achelous river. Nature has fascinated me since childhood, especially the mountains. I sit for hours, observing a tree. Passersby think I've lost it”, he says and invites me to eat vegetables with our hands from the salad and the special "saganaki" (fried cheese) which Nikos has just served us from his tavern "To Kazani tou Pappou", that sits across the village plaza. Music plays, Sade's tunes filling the air, as we gaze ecstatically at the towering mass of Varnountas in front of us.

"From the age of five, I have memories of two grandfathers and two grandmothers. Back in the day, when most Athenians returned from Christmas, Easter, and summers with car trunks full of lambs, cheeses, pies, and oils. During summer holidays, every 15th of August the village had celebrations and clarinets around the plane trees of the square. I've made yarn with the spindle and spun wool with my grandmother. We made braids from goat wool, and then my grandmother, loaded with wood from the mountains, would start a fire to bake a pie.

Everything is etched in memory since I remember myself.”

Did you receive love?

I received love from my family while growing up. No complaints at all. Looking back, I reflect on myself. The first time I left Athens at the age of ten, I rode my bike in the Thessalian countryside, where we hunted crows, frogs, and goldfinches, and climbed the hills to see the falcons' nests.

How did you bid farewell to the police force?

The second time I left Athens, I also left a special unit where we dealt with diverse cases. I remember the supervisor asking me, "Where will you go? Here is the game." What people experience in the city now seems so surreal to me. And if you ask me, the modern urban lifestyle is responsible for most of humanity's woes. If we've been on this planet for 250,000 years —as books say— only from the industrial revolution onwards have we lived in the modern city. All the previous thousands of years, humans lived in nature. Outside.

Is our instinct our true self?

Well, yes. I've been listening to my instinct since I was young, and in the police job, I learned to cultivate it more. It can even save your life when you heed it. Those driving F1 cars or those of you photojournalists, for instance, rely heavily on instinct. It's sad that we live in the era of "reason only," where everything else seems demonic.

Now, according to Joe Dispenza, even the sceptics of humanity are not bound by our genes, nor are we programmed in a specific way for the rest of our lives. The emerging sciences of quantum physics and neuroscience allow us the possibility to create the reality we choose.

So, with my ex-wife, on every leave we came here, where our instinct led. Before settling in 2009, we already had acquaintances calling and asking, "When are you coming?" That's how I requested a transfer here, at the police station of Agios Germanos. We arrived and made a living from the next morning.

In practice, it's challenging, if not impossible, to leave the city suddenly one day and go to the countryside to cultivate tomatoes. A nice dream, yes, but it needs a plan. My plan was to leave the police, do what I had to do, and go. And I did. It took some time, but I did it.

I was the village policeman and was filled with joy. For the first six months, I didn't even want to go to Florina for the basic chores; I didn't want to see people, concrete, and apartments. Of the city rumble, I was full. I took a good dose with the locals. "Hey, policeman, where are you?"—tsipouro and conversations. Entering the flow of inner peace. At times someone would call for a minor incident, but everything would be resolved with a couple of phone calls.

And the next stage?

I stayed at the village station until 2016. During a five-year period, six of us formed a Cooperative, rented a twenty five-acre farm, practised permaculture and regenerative agriculture, raised heritage black pigs, cultivated vegetable gardens, strawberries, and made various wonderful efforts. I was simultaneously in the police, and when I felt ready for the next stage, I left. There's always a next stage. Cooperatives have their challenges though, so one day we closed it. Two difficult years followed with a plunge into the void.

I matured in the police force in Athens, having started my career there at 20 years of age, but I hold onto my childhood awe while observing the falling leaf or the flight of a butterfly.

What did the “farm school” teach you?

I learned about the seasons, the moon, the cold. To wake up without a clock, with snow outside, and go to feed the animals. On New Year's day, I had to leave the celebration for a while. The animals were waiting for me. How many times have I transcended myself, observing how the sow cares for the piglets… The more I observe, the more I see. The meadows. Will there be acorns? Will there not be? How does the pig choose them?

Details in the patterns of nature. As you observe, you reach the infinite. Thus, behind the image and its graphics, you read the world in patterns, reaching metacognition and interpretation.

Ten years in the police in Athens and five years as a farmer? How do your experiences compare?

One complemented the other. Enthralled by nature, I observed the animals on the farm, paralleling it with Orwell's farm. The farm for the people, the fold, is the city. Sheep fear the wolf, but in the end, the shepherd slaughters them.

Scientists experiment on pigs; our physiology is close. We might believe the law of the strongest applies, but on a higher level, nature operates cooperatively. The natives of North America, when killing a buffalo, simultaneously honoured it, and in a way improved the survivability of the herd.

Like the natives, my grandfather, whose name I bear and wear his ring, prayed when he slaughtered a lamb for Easter. I have watched him saying something within, having the knowledge to slaughter without distressing the animal, and I’ve seen a tear rolling down my grandmother's cheek.

Another example: when the rivers dried because deer increased in an area and ate all the vegetation, people introduced wolves to regulate the deer population, balancing the system.

My grandfather used to say, "What the goat does to the tree, the tree does to the goat."

Nature breathes in cycles that last much longer than a human's lifespan. Where there are oak trees now, there were different trees once, and in a thousand years, there will be others. But we, with narrow minds, never ask advice from Mother Earth, La Pacha Mama.

We bid farewell with hugs and dance. Apostolis, fulfilling yet another dream, shares his passion for music. Behind the DJ console, he plays the iconic track "Plastic Dreams" by Jaydee, setting the mood. In this midday celebration, another dream of mine comes true, and I dance it with gratitude.

Our friend and Dreamer chooses to walk the path marked by his namesake, in his Mission and in the Good Hour. I thank him for that.

*Last edited on January 7th 2024.

Emerge Deeper is in pre-launch phase. If you’ve read this unfinished “About” page, and really felt something between the lines calling you, consider subscribing —it’s just a button away.

The voyage is about to begin and some special treats are in-house for those of you who’ll tag along before the launch!

*First photo by Cristian Palmer, second photo by Jr Korpa, third photo from Wikipedia.