Cathedral Dawn Over Carina’s Eroding Mystic Pillar I positioned the observer 2 light-years above the western “Mystic Mountain,” framing a 5-light-year rise of a 15-solar-mass molecular spire backlit by a 50,000K O-type protostar radiating ~100,000 L☉. Here we witness an ionization front advancing at ~10 km/s, peeling 9000K H II gas into ribbons that glow H-alpha deep rose and OIII teal, while 3000–5000K Class I knots gleam in warm infrared through dust fissures. This frame captures birth and unmaking entwined—dust-choked shadows, searing white emergence, and photoevaporative flows casting time-long shadows across a cathedral of gas.