How to Live a Flaming June Summer

Embodying Frederic Leighton's Flaming June: A Poetic Guide to Golden Days, Artful Living and Seasonal Enchantment

Dear Enchanted One,

Oh to have a a Flaming June sort of summer….

To sleep beneath the weight of the sun itself. To drape yourself in orange blossoms and dreams. To smell like fire blooming. To become a painting of golden languor.

I’ve fallen back under the spell of Flaming June (1895) by Frederic Leighton (for me this will always be summer personified).

Her drowsy splendour, her citrus silk, her eternal surrender to summer’s soft burn.

And so, for the very first letter in this Cabinet of Enchantments series, a collection of whimsical, scholarly, and soulful curations, I have gathered a montage of delights that feel as though they belong in her world (and now yours!)

“She lay like a jewel dropped from the sun,
in a dream of oranges and light…”

It begins with a painting.

A woman draped in citrus silk, curled like flame into herself, sleeping beneath the heat of her own radiance. Her soft surrender. Her golden stillness. The feeling that she has become summer itself.

This isn’t just a painting to admire. It’s a life to embody.

A life of fragrant skin and sun-warmed limbs. Of languid days. Of books read in orange groves and naps taken on linen blankets. Of time that drips slowly like honey from the comb.

And so here, my most enchanted one, let us uncover a gentle guide to invite a Flaming June life into your own summer!

The Symbolism Of Flaming June

Let us start with the symbolism and secrets within the canvas of this amber stillness.

Painted in 1895 by Frederic Leighton, Flaming June is one of the final masterpieces of the Victorian era.

In the painting, a woman rests beneath an invisible sun, her limbs curled in perfect repose, clothed in glowing orange drapery that melts into the warmth around her. Her bare shoulder gleams like a ripe apricot, and behind her the sea flickers like a forgotten thought.

But look again, close still, and just beneath her elbow notice how she rests beside a cluster of oleander, a flower as toxic as it is beautiful. This is no idle detail.

This juxtaposition, beauty and danger, slumber and death, heat and fragility, lends the painting its quiet complexity.

For Flaming June is not merely a decadent and sumptuous scene, but it is a meditation on mortality, on the ephemeral nature of summer, and perhaps even on the societal role of women in an age where rest was a luxury, not a right.

In an era that demanded decorum, duty, and domesticity from women, Flaming June dares to depict a woman in absolute, unapologetic rest. And not just res: radiance.

Her very stillness becomes power. Her softness becomes strength. She is not being gazed upon for anyone’s pleasure; she is dreaming her own dream, becoming her own sun.

To me, she is the very essence of July. Of surrender. Of stillness as power. So let’s unravel this juiciness for our own Summer season.

1. Dress in Summer’s Fire

The dress in Flaming June is no mere adornment. It is the sun made silk. The fabric whispers across the canvas like light across water.

To embody this, wear clothes that feel like the sun is touching you:

Seek a gown in tangerine, saffron, or molten amber
Choose fabrics that flow, chiffon, silk, voile, that catch the breeze
Accessorise with golden bracelets, pearls, bare shoulders, and soft sandals made for wandering

In my vision of Flaming June, the perfect dress feels like the painting come to life soft cotton in warm marigold, with elbow-length puff sleeves that catch the breeze like rippling sunbeams.

I adore the Zeena x Joanie Emma Marigold Floral Puff Sleeve Midaxi Dress its square neckline and fitted bodice speak of vintage grace, while the skirt, dappled with delicate florals, is both practical and poetic: the kind of dress you might wear to wander through an orange grove, read under a lemon tree, or nap on a terrace at midday!

2. Smell Like Fire Blooming

Now we have the dress it’s time for perfume, a perfect way to summon the mood of a memory, or a painting.

To live a Flaming June life, choose a scent that feels like warm skin kissed by sunlight!

As for me, I’m madly in love with Orebella’s Blooming Fire a fragrance I cannot stop wearing! I adore Bella Hadid and I have been longing to experience the Orebella range and finally can now it’s for sale at Selfridges (as I’m in the UK!)

Blooming Fire is a golden potion made of Tahitian monoi flower, radiant bergamot, and just a hint of exotic patchouli. It smells like lazy kisses in the sun, silk sheets in golden hour, citrus trees blooming under the weight of the day. Simply divine!

Not able to find Orebella? Here are some other notes to look for in your signature summer scent:
⋆ Neroli ⋆ Jasmine ⋆ Peach ⋆ Sandalwood ⋆ Vanilla amber

What’s your summer fragrance of your choice?

3. A Flaming June Reading List for Rest and Radiance

A gentle curation of slow pages for golden afternoons, naps under trees, and the sacred art of soft living.

I have chosen each book on the Flaming June reading list to be a mirror of her languid repose and citrus-silk dreamscape, inviting us to rest, to wonder, and to bloom inwardly beneath the midsummer sun.

I hope these books help you hold slowness, longing, connection to the land and to the spirit. These are books that feel like laying down in dappled light and listening to your own heart.

I’d love to know if any of these are already beloved to you, or if you have additional ideas for a Flaming June summer!

1. The Art of Rest by Claudia Hammond
A beautiful, research-rich exploration of the many ways rest can manifest, far beyond sleep, from daydreaming to walking in nature. Ideal for those yearning to rest deeply and intentionally.

2. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
An anointed, radical call to reject grind culture and reclaim your humanity. Tricia Hersey (founder of The Nap Ministry) writes with fire and softness. This is a must-read for soulful summer reclamation.

3. Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
Gentler and perhaos more accessible than his earlier works (although I am a huge Cal Newport fan girl!), this book champions depth over urgency. Highly recommended for poetic souls looking to protect their creativity from the tyranny of the to-do list.

4. Wintering by Katherine May
Though it speaks of winter, this book is truly a meditation on inner seasons and it teaches us how to slow down, tend to ourselves, and surrender to necessary stillness. A balm for the burnt out.

5. The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn
The follow-up to The Salt Path, this is a lush memoir about healing through nature and the redemptive power of quiet rural life.

6. Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Earth-songs wrapped in prose. These books whisper of kinship, reciprocity, and the exquisite relationship between humans and the land. True soul food.

7. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
This is part manifesto and part meditation: Odell reminds us of the radical joy of birdwatching, idleness, and tuning back into the rhythms of the natural world.

8. Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May
A tender, shimmering book about awe, healing, and returning to a state of reverent curiosity in a world that often forgets how to look up.

9. A Life of One’s Own by Marion Milner
A forgotten classic, but this 1930s diary of self-discovery is a guide to carving out time for creative solitude, beauty, and the soul’s true pace.

10. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
For those longing to soften into rest without guilt, Brené’s words are warm, wise, and perfectly companionable.

4. Music for Napping in Orange Blossoms

Would you like a classical music playlist to enjoy with your Flaming June reading list?

Here is a collection of music that sways like silk in the heat of a golden afternoon. This is a soundtrack for slow days, sun-warmed skin, and drifting into dreams beside open windows and blooming orange trees.

There’s just nothing like music to stretch out time, and remind your soul how to rest in beauty. May you find something to hold you deeply and tenderly here!

Your Flaming June Classical Playlist might include:

⋆ Summer - Vivaldi
⋆ Rêverie - Debussy
⋆ Pavane pour une infante défunte - Ravel
⋆ Nocturnes - Fauré
⋆ La fille aux cheveux de lin - Debussy
⋆ Pastorale d'été - Honegger
⋆ Violin Sonata in G minor - Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
⋆ Summerland - Florence Price
⋆ Méditation from Thaïs - Massenet
⋆ Clair de Lune - Claude Debussy

5. How To Create Your Own Flaming June Dreamscape

Let us now imagine your own Flaming June world. What would it feel like? Here are some invitations for your Summer to invite in this feeling:

A terrace with terracotta pots and lemon trees
Silk sheets, open windows, golden notebooks on the bed
Peach iced tea in crystal glasses
A summer nap in dappled light

What would you add to this list? Whatever it is, let your home surroundings become your canvas.

And let us not forget, Flaming June was nearly lost to time.

Yes, after Leighton's death, the painting fell into obscurity and was only rediscovered decades later in a neglected state. Perhaps this, too, is part of her magic: she returned when we most needed her.

And, enchanted one, you too can you return, to softness, to slowness, to summer’s sacred pause.

A Final Reflection

Rest as Radiance

To finish our curation of a Flaming June summer, what if you lived like the painting?

What if you became Flaming June this summer not in image, but in essence? What would it mean to dress like the sun, smell like blossoms, slow your life to the pace of beauty?

You might also want to consider these contemplations:

Could you let your rest be radiant?
Could you treat your pleasure as sacred?
Could you become the golden flame of your own story?

To even invite a slither of Flaming June is a reclamation. It is art history come alive. It is rest as resistance. It is softness as sovereignty.

So, I invite you to write to me in the comments what your Flaming June life looks like. And together, we will write a new mythology of summer. I hope you enjoyed this first post from my Cabinet of Enchantments series! I cannot wait to unravel another painting in a similar way! Until then…..

With love and enchantment,
Georgie xoxo

Founder of the Academy Of The Enchanted Arts

Categories: : Cabinet Of Enchantments