DAYS before the biggest event in recent Scottish history it's hard to know if either side can say or do anything that will substantially change the result.

It may be a simple question of momentum as the Yes yawl catches the breeze and heads for home - the pace of its progress determined not by reassuring Yes politicians or scaremongering big business leaders but by the vagaries of human nature.

Yes campaigners may now be onlookers, waiting to see if the Good Ship has enough wind in her sails to reach port or, to mix metaphors, they may be like brushers adding critical speed and fine-tuned precision to the final stone cast in an epic curling match.

One thing's for sure. Irrespective of likely outcome or opinion polls, extraordinary energy will be expended by Yes activists in the last days of the campaign because a radical and unexpected shift in Scots has taken place - perhaps as significant as the Big Vote itself.

Bystanders have become organisers, followers have become leaders, politics has become creative, women have become assertive, men have learned to facilitate not dominate, and independent action and self-reliance have helped create a fully tradeable Yes currency - a "can-do" approach shared by almost everyone active in the campaign.

There are two big anxieties now. One is that the referendum vote is narrowly lost. The other is that this precious feeling of engagement, power and daily purpose will disappear - crushed by a No vote or by a Yes victory that simply installs suits at the helm of Scotland's new independent society.

Because unexpectedly, here, in centrally run, top-down, passive, law-abiding Scotland, people power has triumphed. Not among all the people, but enough to have changed the dynamics of the referendum campaign and the future conduct, priorities, look and sound of political debate - whatever the result on September 18.

Like all the best revolutions there was no silver bullet, no single event, no starter's pistol and no paid organisers clutching mission statements and clipboards. Well, maybe there were a few - but mercifully most stayed inside the Yes campaign headquarters. Their early self-absorbed inactivity was a mistake. But like the error that prompted penicillin's discovery, it was a brilliant, empowering mistake which allowed a movement to grow where once there were only politicians.

When the Catalan president visited Scotland in 2013, Artur Mas was envious - we have a referendum process agreed with London while Madrid refused to discuss a vote. When he left a week later, the envy had gone. Mas said the Scottish independence campaign was not a real movement - but a top-down, party-led campaign with very little grass-roots activism.

The Catalan leader had a point back then. Not now. The independence movement has grown beyond the vision of one party or one man and, surprisingly in schism-prone Scotland, there's been little friction or petty argument. Instead, Yes has reminded many 50-somethings of the idealistic, hippy days of their youth - infused with artistry, influenced by women and devoid of the preciousness that turns so many people off politics.

Indeed, the mission to change the archaic, passive, top-down, over-professionalised, party-controlled practice of politics in Scotland has become a real motivation for many who have given time, energy and cash to National Collective and its edgy, thought-provoking Yestival tour, the Radical Independence Campaign with its mass canvassing of hitherto "hard-to-reach" Scots and crowd-funded journalism in Bella Caledonia, Newsnet Scotland and countless documentaries, films and videos plus the bold experiment of Referendum TV.

Local Yes groups expected instructions, resources and directions from HQ. Soon they stopped waiting and started acting. Scots demanding a more equal, grass roots-based and active society became the change they wanted to see. It's been a heady thing to witness close up.

I embarked on a Blossom tour of Scotland, initially avoiding official Yes meetings because my book (Blossom: What Scotland Needs To Flourish) is more about Scotland's enduring and destructive patterns of elite control, centralisation and vastly unequal ownership of land, rivers and wealth than the referendum. The stories focus not on the great and good but on the communities and individuals who are bravely conducting battles against stagnation and poverty - battles which are generally fought by community-sized local councils in most neighbouring, right-sized, decentralised social democracies.

The near-endless speaking tour - more than 200 events since last September - was only possible because of rapidly emerging networks, word-of-mouth contact, social media and talented volunteers - many of them women and young folk with no earlier formal party political involvement and therefore, mercifully, no set ideas about how to organise political events.

One young mum travelled from Farr, near Inverness to a Blossom meeting in Aberdeen. She went home and chatted to another mum as they watched their children at the playground. Neither had organised a political event before but they enlisted like-minded friends to produce hundreds of posters, laminate and nail them onto every road junction within a 10-mile radius of the village hall, and replace them up to four times to cope with rain and naysayers.

On the night, the women organised a PA system, got badges, stickers and books, produced food and drink - all delicious, homemade and free with a donations box for overnight expenses - and opened the night with a fabulous, local all-women band. Around 250 people packed into Farr's tiny remote hall and the ensuing talk and discussion lasted almost four hours.

Another young mum in the audience went home to Strathpeffer, spoke to friends and reproduced the same warm and relaxed atmosphere with another capacity audience a few months later.

One of the most heartening things has been the changing attitude of Yes men towards women, as polls graphically demonstrated a gender gap based on the habitual exclusion of women from political life, technical, abstruse detail and combative Punch-and-Judy style debates. As each poll revealed a new weak point in the Yes demographic, campaigners put the interests of those social groups before their own.

Empathy has flourished. Older gents who might once have been Tartan Tories have admired the dogged young street canvassers. Tub-thumping "heart" nationalists have acknowledged the more subtle approach of Women for Independence. Politician-averse cynics have admired the spirited performances of Patrick Harvie, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond.

Independence has been a difficult journey - and that has been its making. Difficulty demands organisation, camaraderie and creative solutions.

It has produced that precious thing - political will which will encourage politicians to use the powers soon available to them (new and existing) so Scotland is transformed from a tartan England into the modern European social democracy we have voted to become these seven long decades.

The campaign for independence is not yet won but it is hopeful and real. The equally important struggle for independent-mindedness is already in the bag.