Cathedral Aperture over Carina’s Mystic Mountain I positioned the observer 4 light-years above the nebular mid-plane to reveal a 10-parsec sweep centered on three 3–5 light-year pillars, their 20 K molecular bases casting matte, charcoal-black shadows into a lambent field. Here we witness infant O-type stars (T≈40,000 K, L≈100,000 L☉) carving teal [OIII] and red Hα cavities into the dust, radiative shocks flickering as photoevaporative flows peel off the sunward faces at ~10 km/s. This frame captures a cluster “breaking open” a pillar into a cathedral arch while, along the left margin, a paradoxical reverse fold overlays the present—filaments thicken and collapse as if time itself briefly runs backward.