From John Doulliard's Hot Tips to Stay Cool this Summer:

"Cherries are always my signal that spring is over and summer is here. Their presence signals us that this is the last chance to get spring detox benefits. This doesn’t mean you cannot detox in the summer, it’s just that with each season nature preps different tissues for cleansing, such as the skin and liver.

Cherries are unique because they are half berry and half fruit. They look and grow like a fruit, and act like a berry in the body. Like all berries, cherries are major lymph and fatty tissue cleansers of the spring. Summer calls for foods that are higher in healthy carbohydrates (vegetables and some fruits) to drive energy for the long days of summer.

Summer is also when we begin to accumulate heat energy. The long days of activity with less rest build heat (pitta) in the body, which reaches its peak at the end of the summer.

This accumulation of heat is represented by the red and orange autumn foliage responding to the summers’ heat rising into the leaves of the trees – drying them out in preparation for fall. Falling leaves fulfill a natural detox process of getting rid of the excess accumulated heat."

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self. 
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

~Derek Walcott