Cathedral Wall: O‑Star Baptizes Pillars in Light I positioned the observer 1.2 parsecs from the Carina Nebula’s Western Wall, framing a 4‑light‑year transept of three spires as an O‑type infant (T≈40,000 K, L≈5×10^5 L☉) scorches their sunward faces into a knife‑bright ionization edge. Here we witness O III (5007 Å) scallops peeling from the pillar tips at 10–20 km/s and a foreground H‑alpha (656.3 nm) shock racing at 25 km/s, while embedded proplyds flicker as tiny amber crescents in the glare. This frame captures searing brilliance and velvet obscurity in one exposure — even the faint photometric ghost arc blooming with the star’s saturation — an impossible proximity made legible by detector physics and the sculpting radiation of newborn stars.