Cathedral Spine Before the Actinic Choir I positioned the observer 0.4 parsec from a 3–light-year molecular pillar inside Carina, framing its cold, dust-choked silhouette against a rose-red H-alpha ionization curtain at ~8000 K where a newborn O-star cluster (spanning ~0.1 light-year) has just broken through. Here we witness photoevaporation gnawing the pillar’s sunward edge, evaporating globules backlit gold, and supersonic protostellar jets stitching teal knots through the glowing sheet. This frame captures the instant creation sculpts its own cradle: darkness coalescing to the left, actinic fire to the right, the scale so vast the mind must slow to feel it.