Marsha
I have long taken Monique Wittig's exhortation seriously, along with Charlene Spretnak's inspirational work of re-storying - and particularly her work with the Demeter-Persphone myth. It had a central place in "Re-storying Goddess" classes that I taught for over a decade.

I don't know about the Lakshmi and Saraswati story, but I can imagine from what you say and from what was done to Goddess stories in Olympic mythology.
I do know enough about Lakshmi's stories to feel that Her association with wealth is mostly interpreted in a very superficial way ... since "wealth" is interpeted as "having lots of stuff". Poor Lakshmi! It suits the patriarchal mind to have Goddesses understood in such ways, to keep them from the "higher" realms - as Chandra was saying really. It is a way of trivializing them: and that word itself - "trivializing" - has been diminished from its original cosmic connection to the Triple Goddess.

Being conscious of language, and how we "spell" the world is important. We need new language for the new myths I feel. I always enjoyed how Mary Daly got that started with her wonderful twists of meaning. 

