Altar Flames Scour the Cathedral Column I positioned the observer 0.5 parsecs from the sunward tip of a 5-light-year pillar in Carina, 7 light-years deep inside the nebula, to watch 40,000 K O-stars carve a 10,000 K ionization rind from their own birthplace. Here we witness H-alpha crimson braided with [O III] teal as photoevaporation streamers (∼0.02 ly wide) peel off at 8–12 km/s, while tiny proplyds launch 200–300 km/s jets through honeyed dust. This frame captures the sacred quiet of erosion at astronomical scale—UV flux near 10^49 photons/s flooding the column—rendered from an impossible proximity no telescope could ever attain without being destroyed by the radiation.